MBW’s Stat Of The Week is a series in which we highlight a data point that deserves the attention of the global music industry. Stat Of the Week is supported by Music Group Fivea technology-driven record label, distribution and rights management company.
Over the past year, we’ve heard a number of music companies bragging about how many tracks they’ve been able to create using generative AI.
For example, the AI music app Boomy said its app had created 14.4 million tracks so far.
Such statistics are not music to the ears of many music industry insiders, some of whom have expressed concern that AI music may drown out the voices of human creators.
They have reason to worry: according to the latest count, there are 120,000 new audio files uploaded daily to music streaming services.
AI music creation platform Mubert is now adding its own jaw-dropping number to this data. The company announced on Wednesday July 12 that its AI had generated 100 million tracks – roughly equal to the complete catalog Available on Spotify.
Mubert says the audio files were generated “exclusively using licensed music for input.” The company claims to have established relationships with music creators who provided audio samples to its AI, allowing Mubert to create a database of 2.5 million “proprietary sounds” on which it trains its algorithm.
Mubert’s basic music generation product, Mubert Render, has 100,000 monthly active users, the company says. It also offers Mubert Play, a subscription streaming service, and Mubert API, a music generator for B2B customers.
Users generated 56 million of the 100 million titles Mubert now has in its library, the company says.
The most common genres of music generated were lo-fi, ambient and chill – which Mubert says makes sense, given that much of the music created on his platform is meant to accompany online streams and shows , interviews, short films and podcasts.
“We are thrilled that Mubert is able to meet the demand for high-quality, legal music to meet the needs of the creator economy,” said Alex Mubert, co-founder and co-CEO, in a statement.
“It is impossible to imagine streams, podcasts and shows without music, and Mubert enables the generation of an unlimited amount of music of any duration and any genre, adapted to the needs of the economy of creators.
However, background music for online broadcasts isn’t Mubert’s only generative AI activity. The company reached an agreement with a music streaming service focused on the Middle East and North Africa Anghamithrough which Anghami has created a library of 200,000 songs so far.
Among Anghami’s uses for Mubert’s algorithm was a feature called “football cheers”, which was available in Persian Gulf countries during the 2022 World Cup. This allowed users to declare the country that they were “cheering”, and Anghami’s technology would generate a unique song for them, informed by the client’s user data. These songs are now hosted on the Anghami server.
Other music services have also reported creating large amounts of music using AI. Tencent Music Entertainment, which operates streaming services in China that tout some 800 million active users, said last year he had generated some 1,000 tracks thanks to AI, one of which had already exceeded 100 million streams.
While many industry players worry about what such a flood of content could mean for the economic value of music in the future, Mubert co-founder Alexey Kochetkov says AI generative can help solve the winner-takes-all nature problem. the music industry, “where industry moguls make millions, while new and potential artists struggle”.
In a guest column for MBW in 2019, Kochetkov wrote that AI “can help shape a new music industry culture – both qualitatively and quantitatively…
“As long as there are no trade-offs for AI, the music industry can become a transparent environment where all stakeholders receive equal voice and fair terms for monetization.”
However, some wonder if Mubert is creating such a “level playing field for monetization.”
In a recent guest column for MBWRan Geffen Levy, CEO of Amusica Song Management in Israel, said AI companies could be the main financial beneficiaries of AI-generated music.
About Mubert, he wrote: “The license agreement provided by Mubert states that Mubert is the sole owner of all economic rights to the remix, such as the so-called ‘master rights’ to the recording, self -so-called neighboring rights/performers. which may accrue to those who perform on the recording, and the rights to the musical composition which is incorporated into the recording.
Levy asked, “If you take humans out of the performer equation, where does that leave the rest of them? What is the compensation for the humans who write and perform the music? Will the musicians be recognized for their work, or will they remain anonymous and work under NDAs and buyouts? Are we about to create sweatshops of musicians? Hey, at some point AI will be able to replace them all.
Five Music Group’s repertoire has won Grammy Awards, dozens of RIAA Gold and Platinum certifications, and numerous No. 1 positions on a variety of Billboard charts. His repertoire includes heavy hitters like Bad Bunny, Janet Jackson, Daddy Yankee, TI, Sean Kingston, Anuel and hundreds more.The music industry around the world
