Consolidation: Does AI Replace a Songwriter?

Based on your personal experience, including what you have learned in this course so far, do you think AI replaces a songwriter?

Professionals in the music industry are divided. Some say generative AI is like the drum machine or the turntable: a new tool that will create whole new genres. Others worry it could replace working composers, or misrepresent cultures because it cannot tell irony from fact. You can read a range of opinions in Lesson 6, Extension B.

Activity 14: Copyright and plagiarism (5 minutes)

Two legal definitions you need to know when you create with AI.

Thoughts on ethics and legal issues

Jeff Ward founded the Indigenous technology company Animikii in 2003 and has led its growth ever since. He is Ojibwe and Métis, originally from Manitoba, and now lives and works in Victoria, BC on Lekwungen territory. He is a web designer, software developer, author, and speaker, and serves on the board of the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network (APTN). Here he shares his thoughts on the ethics of using AI as a songwriting tool.

Do you need to worry about copyright?

If you are writing lyrics and creating songs, yes. If you reuse lyrics or music clips from another song without permission, you are violating copyright.

In the Your Voice is Power remix competition, the artists featured in the sound library have given permission to reuse their clips, so using those clips is not a violation. Downloading songs from a streaming service and using snippets in your remix would be, because you do not have permission. Some music and sound libraries release clips under a Creative Commons licence that allows you to reuse and remix them as long as you give credit.

Copyright is a hotly debated topic with generative AI. If YOU write a prompt, and a COMPANY-owned AI tool trained on data from OTHERS who never gave permission generates lyrics:

• Does the AI tool violate copyright when it generates new text based on other people's work?
• Who owns the copyright for the output generated by the AI?

This is still being worked out in courts and copyright offices around the world. In general, the more you modify the output after it is generated, the more likely it is to be legally considered your own work. See Lesson 6, Extension C for the articles.

Do you need to worry about plagiarism?

If you are using generative AI to create content, you need to make sure you are not committing plagiarism. Be transparent about the use of generative AI by providing attribution. An attribution should include:

• the name and version of the generative AI tool;
• the date the output was generated;
• the URL for the AI tool.

For example:

"This lyric was generated by the Songwriter Bot v1.0 in Jan 2024 at yourvoiceispower.ca/ai/songwriter-bot"

This format is based on the American Psychological Association's guidance on how to cite ChatGPT, which many schools use.

Activity 15: Does your school have an AI policy? (4 minutes)

Are you allowed to use generative AI at school? Do you think teachers are allowed to use generative AI to write tests or report cards? Policies vary across schools, companies, and countries.

For example, the Emily Carr University of Art & Design AI guidelines say instructors decide when students may use generative AI for assignments, and require students to provide attribution whenever AI-generated content is used in submitted work.

Not all schools and school boards have an AI policy. Try searching your school or school board website. If you can't find one, use the Emily Carr guidelines as a starting point and propose one for your class.

What you learned

1. Writing a good prompt is a skill. Details, length, style, and tone all matter.
2. There are pros and cons to using generative AI to create lyrics. It is fast and full of ideas, but it hallucinates, can be biased, and may not feel like your song.
3. Check school policy before using generative AI for school work, and always give attribution.

The big question

Think about everything you learned in this course: what generative AI does well, its limitations, and the legal side. How do you think generative AI fits into the songwriting process?