Spectrum News Features IP Attorney Phil Cardinale on AI Music Copyright Battles

Smith Anderson technology transactions and intellectual property attorney Phil Cardinale was featured on Spectrum News broadcast "AI Music Tools Opening Up New Possibilities, Questions and Concerns.” The piece explores how artificial intelligence is transforming the music industry while raising significant legal questions, especially around copyright and publicity rights.

Major record labels have filed lawsuits against AI music generator websites that are accused of using copyrighted songs to train their models. The websites typically use machine learning techniques to produce songs. By training its learning models on this data, the AI learns to generate new pieces based on what it perceives as good music. Depending on what a user types in, it can create the melody, harmony, rhythm and lyrics to match, Spectrum reports.

Phil explained that the outcome of the lawsuits will likely hinge on proving harm to artists and predicts licensing deals with music publishers in the future.

Phil is the Intellectual Property practice group leader at Smith Anderson. In his practice Phil focuses on technology transactions, intangible asset management and the defense and assertion of the full spectrum of intellectual property rights. His most frequent matters involve brand strategy, trademarks, trade dress, copyright and product design law, as well as the licensing, development and commercialization of those rights and products through strategic transactions. He regularly advises on IP disputes and litigation at the federal, state and agency levels.

The full Spectrum News story can be viewed here.