So why stop with music? How about authors, playwrights and the like? Who wouldn’t like to attend a fresh Shakespeare play? How about politicians! We could bring back President Reagan or even Jack Kennedy - either likely better than the goons running for this office now. The problem with flooding the future with the past is that it could give the present no future.
I wouldn’t take this too seriously when it comes to artists. After all, fancy remixes of Elvis or duets with Edith Piaf have been around for a long time. It’s good (music, speeches, etc.) or it’s a mediocre rehash. The real problem is with forgeries, as in providing a video that shows a crime that didn’t happen.
It's ironic that a writer gets their death + 70 years before their work can be used however anyone pleases, but AI means that the moment you're dead, anyone can deepfake you without consequence.
This all sounds like the novel, 1984, when music uses an algorithm that produces songs that "the Proles" would enjoy. I'm not up for that, or "down" for that, in any case.
Death + 70? Seems like an awfully long time. No wonder hedge funds are paying astronomical dollars for mediocre bands. (I believe Genesis just sold their portfolio for $250mm) I think copyrights should expire after 10 years. Like drug patents. It’s getting abusive. HFs pressured Congress to force radio stations to pay a royalty every time they played a song. Amazon music subscription has tripled in price.
Few people know the history of copyrights. Originally, back in the Elizabethan era, it wasn't intended to protect the author at all, but to give a publisher/printer the monopoly on printing a specific work. How the publisher/printer *acquired* that work was up to an agreement between them and the author, and often consisted of a lump sum, without any royalties.
The reason the authors of the Constitution included copyright and patent protections was to encourage the activity of writers and inventors in their new republic. It seems unlikely that when they wrote "for limited times" they meant "decades beyond the life of the author."
As an author, I appreciate the death +70, because of my family. They should be able to manage my works in a way that pleases them, and for their own benefit. 70 years after my death almost no one living will have significant memories of me.
Disney’s Steamboat Willie, 1928, remains under copyright protection until next year. The AI and copyright does seem like a goldmine for lawyers pro AI and copyright lawyers. Maybe not such a bonanza for the general public.
Yes, and ironic that a penniless artist like van Gogh can die without profiting from his paintings, but collectors will pay millions for them a century later. Is this AI movement to profit from dead musicians that much different? Except now, savvy musicians and other artists will be able to make contracts to steer future AI earnings from their work where they want them to go. It’s a niche for intellectual property attorneys.
There is no ‘new Beatles song’, there is a new fake Beatles song in which I am not interested. We live now in a world populated by too many who live fake lives wondering where to turn for meaning…!
I haven’t. Was that the recent Beatles influenced drama film? Something to do with a guy with a time machine claiming to have written all the Beatles tunes? Or I am I imagining ( puns! ) that’s a thing?
The movie was called Yesterday. The main character suddenly found himself in a world where only he remembered the Beatles. He was quite successful "writing" their songs. It was a clever premise and an entertaining film. It has 6.8/10 stars on IMDB, although I'd rate it an 8.5.
The thought of listening to MORE Beatles makes me want to punch something.
I know it may be anti-whatever but I CANNOT stand the Beatles. It’s constant to relive (now for real) redo, re-write the Beatles their lives, music and THEM. Who actually cares now?
Does this mean no one is ever really dead? Please more narcissism?? Ugh
I hope so. I'm the sextagenarian who can still do a forty in five minutes and will gladly bolt and stub a toe to turn the dial on my Marantz tuner to stop most Beatles tune from fouling my airspace.
The revulsion is similar to the feeling on seeing a bottle of dead-star-branded TCM wine. I'm pretty sure Jimmy Stewart wouldn't have wanted his face on bottles of California cabernet.
The most disturbing to me of these projects in recent memory was the release of Harper Lee's "sequel" to (or rough original draft of, or alternate version of) "To Kill a Mockingbird" while she was still alive, but following her own stroke and the death of her sister (and lifelong protector). This was a "discovered manuscript" -- discovered by business associates who stood to gain handsomely from its publication -- that Lee had repeatedly, in her pre-stroke life, refused to publish, having spent decades insisting she'd never publish again.
There remains, following Lee's death, a great deal of lingering doubt about whether "Go Set a Watchman" is an attempted sequel pieced together by other people. Health department officials in Alabama even felt pressured to launch an investigation into elder abuse of the celebrated writer (who had limited vision, was largely deaf, and lived in assisted care). While they ultimately concluded Lee hadn't been forced or manipulated into agreeing to publish the book, people who had known her (and her sister) for many years remained skeptical, some even expressing doubt about whether "statements" attributed to the writer and issued via email to journalists and publications had actually been made by Lee. The controversy was not helped by the fact that a guard was placed on duty at the assisted-living home (whether to prevent unmonitored or unwanted contact with Ms. Lee remains unclear).
Lots of people were horrified with the depiction of the much-beloved Atticus Finch character as a racist in "Watchman" (which may well have been Lee's first draft of "Mockingbird"). Personally, I've never read "Watchman," and never will, as I continue to feel so deeply uncomfortable with the circumstances of its alleged "discovery" -- including Lee's purported 90-degree turnaround and out-of-long-established-character enthusiasm for its publication at a particularly vulnerable time in her life.
I don't so much mind James Bond books continuing to be written by the company (Ian Fleming Publications Ltd.) as everyone knows Fleming himself is not still writing these novels. I DO mind the company reissuing Fleming's original books with edits designed to bring them in line with contemporary sensitivities (i.e., removing racial references and terms/attitudes that might be considered "offensive" by modern readers). I similarly object strongly to Penguin's edits and censorship of Roald Dahl's wonderful children's books last year (Google for the specifics if you're not already familiar with the story). It's bad enough for greedy content pushers to animate dead artists like meat puppets to sell us new work that the original artists didn't create and may well have objected to -- it's absolutely unacceptable, in my view, to revise the work those artists DID create. And it's equally unacceptable in my view to take away work that artists released into the public domain during their lives (and that millions have enjoyed and loved), like the four Seuss books (stripped without notice from his estate's publishing catalog, and also immediately removed from eBay and Amazon).
I think John would have loved it. The Lennon/McCartney songwriting team was built on trust and one or the other cutting out the bad bits and keeping the good ones.
Paul stitching together a John fragment into something new was commonplace.
The medley on the second side of Abbey Road is segments stitched together by mostly Paul. Day in the Life was two segments that together were greater than the whole. Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey & Picasso's Last Words are other genius examples from Paul's solo career.
George probably would have loved how it turned out too.
It's a different subject when the alterations are done by the composers as compared to AI and it's manipulators. Hey, look, there's a new Hayden symphony. The good news is that no one has to buy the product or even listen to it. Choice, the last refuge of humans. Support living music.
IMO, having read two biographies of George, I doubt he would approve. He resented the dominance of the Lennon/McCartney partnership which shut out most of George's own songwriting while the band was together. This new recording is more of that. And he had a very spiritual relationship with the nature of both life and death. He would wish to Rest In Peace.
George was an integral part of the Beatles and recorded some great music after the band broke up. But he lived much of his post-Beatles life like a hermit on a remote estate near Hana, Maui. Not my role model in that regard.
Johnny Cash sounded hollow without the nuanced touches that made his songs resonate. A bit like the authors who finish writing the “unfinished” books of Austen or Dickens. Although the writers finishing the book are experts in the authors’ style, they cannot capture the original authors’ brilliance.
i don't think prince would have been happy at all with 42% of his estate getting snapped up for this use. he was notoriously well known for controlling his music and his image. but it's his own damn fault for not having a will in place, which still shocks me, considering how much of a control freak he was with everything else in his life.
I think it is the signs of a stagnating and dying culture, looking back to its more creative glory days. No new artists will ever be allowed to break through if we only look to past artists.
My profession is understandably worried! Why pay a human Narrator SAG/AFTRA wages if you can clone their Voice believably... and it is already being done. I'm thoroughly awed with AI capabilities, but we need to find methods (and quickly!) to assure we real humans don't become obsolete! Or that our voices (anyone's voices!) aren't used for commercial gain... or more nefarious purposes!
We are in true cultural stagnation and decline. How will any new artists get a chance to shine when we continue to put out new material from long dead ones? Who will get a chance to be the next Jimi Hendrix when corporations keep putting out "new" music under his name?
Just like it seems every movie and TV show is some sort of sequel or reboot these days, the music industry will soon be nothing but remixes and duets of from artists of a more creative and artistic era.
There’s less to this story than meets the eye. Artists dead or alive, there’s good music and then the rest. If people want to pay to see a mediocre song with a dead artist, let them do it; after all there’s plenty of mediocre music by alive artists that makes big money.
McCartney obviously didn’t insist on finalizing “Now and Then” because he needed to cash in on his old friend’s fame, but because the song had a sentimental value to him. I’ll listen to it - for old times’ sake - but I will by it only if I really like it.
So why stop with music? How about authors, playwrights and the like? Who wouldn’t like to attend a fresh Shakespeare play? How about politicians! We could bring back President Reagan or even Jack Kennedy - either likely better than the goons running for this office now. The problem with flooding the future with the past is that it could give the present no future.
I'd love to hear a new Cicero speech, especially with video!
Socrates hasn't released anything in a long time!
Heck, it's probably time for some new sermons by Jesus Christ, we've just read all the old ones SO many times.
Haha
I'd love to hear him critique 'The Last Temptation of Christ.'
I love your last sentence and may share it!!
How about readers, listeners and viewers? AI could just replace us as well, so we don't have to be a part of this wave of onrushing dreck.
I sometime think it would be nice to have an AI go to work for me one day a week lol.
Lol!! AI is so biased they would make Reagan look like Hitler and Kennedy like Mother Theresa.
We have alot of books being released under the names of dead authors already
A hearty applause
I wouldn’t take this too seriously when it comes to artists. After all, fancy remixes of Elvis or duets with Edith Piaf have been around for a long time. It’s good (music, speeches, etc.) or it’s a mediocre rehash. The real problem is with forgeries, as in providing a video that shows a crime that didn’t happen.
The courts are increasingly rejecting digital evidence for the reason you point out: Digital evidence can no longer be assumed to be reliable.
It's ironic that a writer gets their death + 70 years before their work can be used however anyone pleases, but AI means that the moment you're dead, anyone can deepfake you without consequence.
There must be wills and estates lawyers busily preparing new clauses to address and direct a person's digital afterlife.
You've planted a picture in my mind of celebrity estate lawyers in their 40th story corner offices rubbing their hands in glee.
This all sounds like the novel, 1984, when music uses an algorithm that produces songs that "the Proles" would enjoy. I'm not up for that, or "down" for that, in any case.
There have been algorithms used in music production for years as I understand it they are harder to develop for movies
That's been happening for years. It was a plot point in a Law and Order SVU episode a few years ago.
Death + 70? Seems like an awfully long time. No wonder hedge funds are paying astronomical dollars for mediocre bands. (I believe Genesis just sold their portfolio for $250mm) I think copyrights should expire after 10 years. Like drug patents. It’s getting abusive. HFs pressured Congress to force radio stations to pay a royalty every time they played a song. Amazon music subscription has tripled in price.
Few people know the history of copyrights. Originally, back in the Elizabethan era, it wasn't intended to protect the author at all, but to give a publisher/printer the monopoly on printing a specific work. How the publisher/printer *acquired* that work was up to an agreement between them and the author, and often consisted of a lump sum, without any royalties.
The reason the authors of the Constitution included copyright and patent protections was to encourage the activity of writers and inventors in their new republic. It seems unlikely that when they wrote "for limited times" they meant "decades beyond the life of the author."
💫
Intellectual property law has become ridiculous.
As an author, I appreciate the death +70, because of my family. They should be able to manage my works in a way that pleases them, and for their own benefit. 70 years after my death almost no one living will have significant memories of me.
Disney’s Steamboat Willie, 1928, remains under copyright protection until next year. The AI and copyright does seem like a goldmine for lawyers pro AI and copyright lawyers. Maybe not such a bonanza for the general public.
Yes, and ironic that a penniless artist like van Gogh can die without profiting from his paintings, but collectors will pay millions for them a century later. Is this AI movement to profit from dead musicians that much different? Except now, savvy musicians and other artists will be able to make contracts to steer future AI earnings from their work where they want them to go. It’s a niche for intellectual property attorneys.
Such contracts will only be enforceable if there is legislation to back them up.
There is no ‘new Beatles song’, there is a new fake Beatles song in which I am not interested. We live now in a world populated by too many who live fake lives wondering where to turn for meaning…!
I wish the remaining Beatles would heed the advice of one of the last songs they actually recorded, here in ordinary reality: Let It Be.
I haven’t heard it and don’t wish to. And I love love love the Beatles.
You're right. Don't go there.
Did you see the movie ‘Yesterday’. I found my appreciation of Beatles music revived…
I haven’t. Was that the recent Beatles influenced drama film? Something to do with a guy with a time machine claiming to have written all the Beatles tunes? Or I am I imagining ( puns! ) that’s a thing?
The movie was called Yesterday. The main character suddenly found himself in a world where only he remembered the Beatles. He was quite successful "writing" their songs. It was a clever premise and an entertaining film. It has 6.8/10 stars on IMDB, although I'd rate it an 8.5.
And Ed Sheeran was a very good addition in my view…
The last "new" Beatles songs were Free as a Bird and Real Love.
An IMHO they were unnecessary and unmemorable.
The irony through all this jibber-jabber is that "Now and Then" is a dreadful boring tune. Dead Men Sing No Songs.
There's a reason George Harrison said it was rubbish.
That is what I was thinking.
The thought of listening to MORE Beatles makes me want to punch something.
I know it may be anti-whatever but I CANNOT stand the Beatles. It’s constant to relive (now for real) redo, re-write the Beatles their lives, music and THEM. Who actually cares now?
Does this mean no one is ever really dead? Please more narcissism?? Ugh
Woah.
The Beatles are the best band ever, and Elvis is the best singer ever. These are not up for debate.
Well you've been mistaken about other topics prior to that embarrassing post.
I think he’s being sarcastic?
I hope so. I'm the sextagenarian who can still do a forty in five minutes and will gladly bolt and stub a toe to turn the dial on my Marantz tuner to stop most Beatles tune from fouling my airspace.
IMAGINE all the music that may never be created. Its easy if you try.
🤣🫠
Totally creepy.
The revulsion is similar to the feeling on seeing a bottle of dead-star-branded TCM wine. I'm pretty sure Jimmy Stewart wouldn't have wanted his face on bottles of California cabernet.
The most disturbing to me of these projects in recent memory was the release of Harper Lee's "sequel" to (or rough original draft of, or alternate version of) "To Kill a Mockingbird" while she was still alive, but following her own stroke and the death of her sister (and lifelong protector). This was a "discovered manuscript" -- discovered by business associates who stood to gain handsomely from its publication -- that Lee had repeatedly, in her pre-stroke life, refused to publish, having spent decades insisting she'd never publish again.
There remains, following Lee's death, a great deal of lingering doubt about whether "Go Set a Watchman" is an attempted sequel pieced together by other people. Health department officials in Alabama even felt pressured to launch an investigation into elder abuse of the celebrated writer (who had limited vision, was largely deaf, and lived in assisted care). While they ultimately concluded Lee hadn't been forced or manipulated into agreeing to publish the book, people who had known her (and her sister) for many years remained skeptical, some even expressing doubt about whether "statements" attributed to the writer and issued via email to journalists and publications had actually been made by Lee. The controversy was not helped by the fact that a guard was placed on duty at the assisted-living home (whether to prevent unmonitored or unwanted contact with Ms. Lee remains unclear).
Lots of people were horrified with the depiction of the much-beloved Atticus Finch character as a racist in "Watchman" (which may well have been Lee's first draft of "Mockingbird"). Personally, I've never read "Watchman," and never will, as I continue to feel so deeply uncomfortable with the circumstances of its alleged "discovery" -- including Lee's purported 90-degree turnaround and out-of-long-established-character enthusiasm for its publication at a particularly vulnerable time in her life.
I don't so much mind James Bond books continuing to be written by the company (Ian Fleming Publications Ltd.) as everyone knows Fleming himself is not still writing these novels. I DO mind the company reissuing Fleming's original books with edits designed to bring them in line with contemporary sensitivities (i.e., removing racial references and terms/attitudes that might be considered "offensive" by modern readers). I similarly object strongly to Penguin's edits and censorship of Roald Dahl's wonderful children's books last year (Google for the specifics if you're not already familiar with the story). It's bad enough for greedy content pushers to animate dead artists like meat puppets to sell us new work that the original artists didn't create and may well have objected to -- it's absolutely unacceptable, in my view, to revise the work those artists DID create. And it's equally unacceptable in my view to take away work that artists released into the public domain during their lives (and that millions have enjoyed and loved), like the four Seuss books (stripped without notice from his estate's publishing catalog, and also immediately removed from eBay and Amazon).
I think John would have loved it. The Lennon/McCartney songwriting team was built on trust and one or the other cutting out the bad bits and keeping the good ones.
Paul stitching together a John fragment into something new was commonplace.
The medley on the second side of Abbey Road is segments stitched together by mostly Paul. Day in the Life was two segments that together were greater than the whole. Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey & Picasso's Last Words are other genius examples from Paul's solo career.
George probably would have loved how it turned out too.
It's a different subject when the alterations are done by the composers as compared to AI and it's manipulators. Hey, look, there's a new Hayden symphony. The good news is that no one has to buy the product or even listen to it. Choice, the last refuge of humans. Support living music.
IMO, having read two biographies of George, I doubt he would approve. He resented the dominance of the Lennon/McCartney partnership which shut out most of George's own songwriting while the band was together. This new recording is more of that. And he had a very spiritual relationship with the nature of both life and death. He would wish to Rest In Peace.
George was a willing participant on Free as a Bird & Real Love.
He started to work on Now and Then as well.
Facts don't support your thesis.
George was an integral part of the Beatles and recorded some great music after the band broke up. But he lived much of his post-Beatles life like a hermit on a remote estate near Hana, Maui. Not my role model in that regard.
Johnny Cash sounded hollow without the nuanced touches that made his songs resonate. A bit like the authors who finish writing the “unfinished” books of Austen or Dickens. Although the writers finishing the book are experts in the authors’ style, they cannot capture the original authors’ brilliance.
i don't think prince would have been happy at all with 42% of his estate getting snapped up for this use. he was notoriously well known for controlling his music and his image. but it's his own damn fault for not having a will in place, which still shocks me, considering how much of a control freak he was with everything else in his life.
I wouldn't mind an ai that focused on repairing and maintaining architecture and infrastructure...
Fascinating. Not sure how I feel above it. Is a culture dying that is overly focused on its past rather than its future?
I think it is the signs of a stagnating and dying culture, looking back to its more creative glory days. No new artists will ever be allowed to break through if we only look to past artists.
My grandkids are going through my vinyl. One grandson comes over and I know it's he when I hear the first cut of Santana Abraxas start.
I don’t even think our society is focused on its past. It’s focused on what the past “should have been”🤦♂️
I totally agree! Almost everything on Broadway is a remake!
My profession is understandably worried! Why pay a human Narrator SAG/AFTRA wages if you can clone their Voice believably... and it is already being done. I'm thoroughly awed with AI capabilities, but we need to find methods (and quickly!) to assure we real humans don't become obsolete! Or that our voices (anyone's voices!) aren't used for commercial gain... or more nefarious purposes!
I think WE; as the people and our money- will have to demand things list what they are and who/what.
From GMO food to computer generated “art” of any and all sorts.
We are in true cultural stagnation and decline. How will any new artists get a chance to shine when we continue to put out new material from long dead ones? Who will get a chance to be the next Jimi Hendrix when corporations keep putting out "new" music under his name?
Just like it seems every movie and TV show is some sort of sequel or reboot these days, the music industry will soon be nothing but remixes and duets of from artists of a more creative and artistic era.
There’s less to this story than meets the eye. Artists dead or alive, there’s good music and then the rest. If people want to pay to see a mediocre song with a dead artist, let them do it; after all there’s plenty of mediocre music by alive artists that makes big money.
McCartney obviously didn’t insist on finalizing “Now and Then” because he needed to cash in on his old friend’s fame, but because the song had a sentimental value to him. I’ll listen to it - for old times’ sake - but I will by it only if I really like it.