in georgia — partial results from the country's election suggest the ruling party is in the lead, but opposition parties claim the election was �*stolen�*. people injapan are voting too, in a snap general election. the vote, which will decide which party controls parliament's powerful lower house, was called by the country's new prime minister, shigeru ishiba. and king charles is expected to return to a normal schedule next year, as aides describe his tour of australia and samoa as �*the perfect tonic�*. now on bbc news: talking business. hello and welcome to talking business. this week we'll plug in to the music industry. now, what you're seeing is millions of people who can

make music and who want to work in music, um, build businesses using all of this new technology. we're just going to see something wholly different. it is a multi—billion dollar giant that's always adapted to new technology. but could ai finally change the sound of music? do you want to rap on my beats? here's your chance. download this. is it a tool for creativity or a threat to new ideas? will artists be replaced with algorithms? or could it actually give a voice to those without? and what are the legal challenges to making music with al? we'll find out. that's all on the show this week. wherever you're watching, welcome. and whether its records or cds, mp3s or streaming, the music industry has always had to adapt to new technology. but could the arrival of ai pose an altogether different threat?

right now, the music industry is growing strongly. in 2024, global music revenues soared to $28.6 billion. it's up 10% on the year before and is one of the highest growth rates on record. and record companies are investing more than ever, with $7.1 billion spent in a year to develop new talent and market their artists around the world. but could ai change how music is made and who makes it? with generative al's ability to mimic sounds, voices, and even entire styles of an artist, will the biggest global superstar soon be your computer at home? take a listen to this. # she didn't have to cut me off # make out like it never happened and we were nothing? the market is flooded with al apps that allow users to manipulate popular songs.

but is it alljust a bit of harmless karaoke or something altogether off key? earlier this year, around 200 artists called for the predatory use of artificial intelligence in the music industry to be stopped. among the signatories of the open letter was the estate of frank sinatra, and they warned that i will, quote, set in motion a race to the bottom if its left unchecked. here's the view ofjenniferjacobsen. she's from the artist rights alliance, who organised the campaign. the artist rights alliance has been working on al really, since it became a big policy issue over the last couple of years. and really in the last year, we started hearing from our members, from our artists about how concerned they were. we drafted a statement saying, you need to respect artists�* rights, you need to make sure that you are not using our work unlawfully without payment

and compensation and, and licensing. and we were shocked when it started circulating about how many artists wanted to sign on. and it revealed to us that people really feel an existential fear about how ai used unethically could replace or displace human artists. and it became really a kind of calling card for people to say, yes, we really agree with this, we are, as the musicians community, very, very worried about where this is going. we also asked jennifer at which point i becomes a real threat to the livelihoods of artists. i would say there's actually several layers of the threat. one is that al companies begin to use, um, artists�* work for training their models without any compensation, often without any knowledge by the artist that their work is being used for this

type of training. so we call that ingestion. when, um, work is being scraped off the internet or used without any kind of permission to train an ai model. that's one threat. the second type is when, um, an artist likeness is being copied, um, used like a deepfake scenario. we've seen lots of artists whose name, likeness, their voice is being faked, and this kind of digital replica without authorisation is very threatening to the artist because that's their whole being is being used without permission. and then finally, there's a threat in terms of the dilution of the market, the devaluing of art. if we start seeing the market flooded with this type of ai generated content, it becomes harder and harder for people to find the artists that they want to hear, to be able to find the human

made music, and the royalties that are due to artists get diluted by this pool of ai generated music. so those are the top three ways, i think, that artists are feeling the danger of ai. i would say that the way that artists are going about it is to say, let's have guardrails around how ai is used, let's have a system where artists can choose, and we consider that to be our biggest principle — the artist choice in the matter of when their work is used, when their likeness is used, and their ability to get compensation for that use. if there's transparency around how ai is being used and how the use is being licensed or compensated, then i think we can have a marketplace that is, um, fairand has a level playing field for all musicians. so what are the legal

implications? tal dickstein is an entertainment and ip lawyer. good to have you on the programme. thank you for being with us. and answer me this. first of all, is al a threat to the music industry? i think technology up until now, it's been seen as supporting creatives, people who make their living in the music industry. i think some of the concern now is that with the widespread availability of ai, music generation tools, um, anybody you know, individuals or large companies, um, can create music at scale, right? that would simply flood the market, um, and make it harderfor actual, you know, human musicians who make a living living doing this in and around the industry to continue doing that and to support their creative efforts. you know, i don't have the latest statistics, but i know that there are some music generation platforms that are spinning out, you know, tens, dozens, thousands of songs per day.

um, and so, you know, we're just seeing the wave of that starting to hit the market now. given how much material is being churned out by some of these bots, it's quite clear that they are just scraping data from elsewhere. and the question, therefore is who owns that data, and is someone else monetising someone�*s ip? right, that is absolutely sort of the battleground on which this fight is going to be fought. we've seen two lawsuits filed by major record labels in the united states against two ai music creation platforms, sono and udio. and the claim there is that those two companies essentially scraped publicly available recordings, you know, the copyrights in which are owned by the record labels and use those recordings to train their ai models to teach them how to create new musical recordings. the ai companies appears to tend to defend those lawsuits on the grounds of fair use, which is a defence to copyright infringement

in the united states. um, it's a multi—factor test, and frankly, no court has yet applied that fair use doctrine to ai created content. so it remains to be seen how that legal fight will play out. but certainly many in the music industry are not happy with technology companies taking their content and using it without licensing. and i should say that there are, um, ai music generation companies that are licensing the data they're using to train their models. um, and so certainly there is a right way to do it and a wrong way to do it. i mean, this is nothing new in that there are arguments and debates around, you know, torrent sites and mp3 streaming services and, you know, this the latest incarnation of them. but what they have in common is that none of this takes into account the money spent by the industry on things like artist development and promotion and marketing, and all of the other associated elements that make a singer or a performer

or a band a success. it's notjust the music, is it? you make a good point of bringing in artists and bands and individuals who actually, you know, create the music. um, there's a concern there that the ai tools are being used to replicate their voices, um, what's known as digital replicas or voice simulations. and for quite a while, it was sort of a grey area under us law as to whether that was actually permitted or not. but what we've seen now is, you know, with the ability to recreate a singer's voice in a, in a piece of music, it's not core commercial activity, right? it's not advertising a particular product, although it certainly is, you know, making quite a bit of money. so its commercial in that sense. and so i think we've seen a few states in the us change their right of publicity laws to first of all, recognise that voice is something that's protected by the publicity laws.

so someone does have a right in their voice and to prevent digital replicas of their voice and also to extend it to, quote unquote, non—commercial uses. so even if the voice replica is not being used to advertise or market some goods or services, if it's, you know, used to clone their voice to perform in a song that they never actually performed in, there are some states who have amended their laws to make that impermissible. one in particular is tennessee, which amended what's known as the elvis act, obviously after the famous artist who hailed from that state. and we're seeing other movement in other states to, to enact similar legal reform. you raise a really important point there. i mean, everything we've discussed up until this point is about actors and musicians who are alive, and you touch on it there, that idea that how would you be able to regulate and license someone�*s image or their voice after they've died? and you raise a really

interesting one, particularly around things like elvis. right. so actually, for quite a while in the united states, there have been various laws that do protect celebrities�* rights of publicity even after they have died. um, some as long as 70 or 100 years after the personality has died. so that�*s not really anything entirely new in the united states. i think there�*s a feeling that if a celebrity, if a performer, you know, has the right to the integrity of their performances or their name, image and likeness while they�*re alive, then society as a whole should respect those individuals�* wishes after they pass away, when they leave their publicity rights to their heirs, right? or to a trust, for example. and, you know, guided by somebody who they trust to manage their publicity assets. so i think we�*re seeing more of that now, just now being applied to, uh, ai related uses, again,

recognising an individual�*s right in their voice against digital replicas of the voice as well as their image or likeness. tal dickstein, really good to have you on the programme. thank you for being with us on talking business. thanks, ben, thanks for having me. we�*ve talked about the growing regulation around ai to limit the impact on artists and musicians. but can ai tools also be a force for good? well, some firms say they�*re managing to navigate the legalities and offer new tools using ai to make music. one of them is called starmony. it�*s an app that says it�*s democratising the music making process. kevin vesterlund, welcome to the programme. and first of all, explain to me how your app works. starmony allows anyone to just record their voice by either singing or rapping. and then we use different ai technologies to both analyse and enhance what you�*re singing.

so basically anyone is able to create music from scratch with our apps and then release it to a0 plus different streaming services such as spotify, apple music, deezer, etc. the ai, as we see it is, is basically used as a tool to improve what the creators are recording into the app. so almost everything that we have in our database is originally created by humans, and then we use different tools that are trained on our own data to enhance your voice or create new music stems such as a guitar riff or similar. as an audience or as a listener to the music created by apps like yours, do you think the listener would feel cheated? because the reason we like

musicians is that they are incredible talent. be that voice or instrumental or, you know, the composing side of it too. is there an element where you might listen to that music and say, well, yeah, it�*s great, but it�*s created by a computer? well, in our case, it�*s really created by real human beings originally, whether it�*s from a music producer, because we have a network of around a thousand music producers that continues to work with us or the artist that record their voice themselves. and we�*ve taken a stance to not reallyjudge if this piece of music or that piece of music is worth distributing. we really feel that should be in the hands of the artists themselves, and also choose how they want to promote their music, to get fans or listeners, because many don�*t even want that.

they purely starmony for the purpose to get a creative outlet, because theyjust have so many great ideas that they want to get out there and just keep forthemselves, really, or share with friends and family. you founded this out back in 2019, and i imagine the technology has changed a lot even in the last five years. where will it take us? where is this ai technology taking the music industry, do you think? in a very broad sense, i think it will help independent artists mostly to create new sort of genres, really. so they will use, from my opinion, al to ideate or create new sorts of music that didn�*t exist before. much like the synthesiser was used 20 plus years ago to create a totally new genre. so i think it�*s going to be

a very experimental tool that can help you use your creative outlet that you need. but that said, i feel that al music is often not regarding the need to create an artist persona around the person, because much of the reasons that people listen to artists today is because it�*s a credible person behind that, they�*ve created an entire, like with the help of their team, a persona that is portrayed in media, social media, etc. kevin vesterlund, chief operating officer at starmony. thank you for being on the programme this week. thank you, ben. now, some artists have taken matters into their own hands by embracing ai. daouda leonard is the chief executive of createsafe and manager of the award

winning canadian artist grimes. together, they�*ve created an app called elf tech. welcome to the programme. now, first of all, tell me what this software and this app will allow me to do. createsafe is a software development company. we build, uh, tools and products for artists, record labels, managers and the music industry. and therefore, as a result, you built elf tech. just explain how that works. it basically is a product that we conceptualise with grimes. uh, during the sort of hype and boom of the generative ai, uh, frenzy last year. there was an artist who had made a fake record using drake and the weeknd�*s voice. song plays. and the industry kind of went nuts. everybody�*s maybe complaining

and fearful about, you know, all the different things that you can talk about, about what i could do bad. uh, but what we thought was that i can make engaging with artists more fantastical and fun and really usher in a new era paradigm type of fan engagement that elf tech provides as a way to collaborate with an artist. whether it�*s your favourite artist or someone who has a voice that you�*re in love with. but, um, we set the ground rules and almost like the frameworks for consent collaboration, um, and, you know, proper remuneration. so now when anybody makes a song with grimes�* voice, they can distribute it through the application, it goes to spotify, apple music, all the social platforms. and when there�*s money generated, the revenue is split 50 50 between grimes and that, uh, creator. it strikes me, from what you�*ve said, you�*ve come up with a way of making that work. despite the constraints and the regulations around ai as a business model.

do you worry, though, that regulation may change and that makes it more difficult to do what you do? what we do is innovate. so, um, i�*m only focussed on, uh, doing the next thing. um, so i�*m not fearful of how regulation is going to impede me from or my company from, uh, achieving our goals. um, our goals are to make it possible for artists, managers and anyone who wants to build a record label to properly manage their music ip and monetise it. um, those are, you know, like in this digital and now virtual era, our goal is to build the tools that make it possible for people to own their name, image, likeness. um, so i think where we sit is, is sort of being ahead

of regulation and also potentially influencing regulation, like we have shown the world how to use ai in a positive way with someone�*s intellectual property. and that can be applied to, um, more than just music and more than just someone�*s voice. um, but we started with that because we had, you know, an amazing artist to collaborate with on showing the world, uh, how to do things correctly. it certainly seems from what you�*ve said, you�*re pretty bullish about the way ai will change the music industry. you�*ve come up with a way to make it work for both the artists and the creators, but are you concerned about the impact it could have on music and particularly on artists? well, here�*s what i�*m bullish on. i�*m bullish on the idea that emerging technology, um, has and will always change the way society functions. um, you know, i don�*t have to go back to the wheel

or something like that, but it truly is about emerging technology and how it changes our behaviours. what i�*m not bullish on is theft, is misappropriation of someone�*s identity. when you scrape, you know, the internet and put all of these files into your large language model or sound model, that the output isn�*t the person�*s ip, but the input that was used to build that product is the theft. um, and essentially it�*s going to make the cost of creativity go down to zero, which for some is a benefit, but for others it�*s like their lifelong work being taken and used. and maybe they could have just gotten paid for that. if someone raises $150 million, well, maybe some of that money needs to go to the people whose ip was used. so i�*m not bullish on the sort of like what i would term as like immoral or ethical ways in which these new emerging technologies are able to grow and expand.

and if this is such a game changer, do you think there needs to be a fundamental reworking of how the industry operates? i think that like, what is going to have to happen is you�*re going tosee a new music industry emerging. um, and now what you�*re seeing is millions of people who can make music and who want to work in music, um, build businesses using all of this new technology. you�*re just going to see something wholly different. when you see and understand what�*s being built in the virtual video gaming space, you realise that there�*s going to be brand new artists who are developed within, within things like roblox and fortnite. um, they�*re going to, uh, they�*re going to make theirfirst music in these games. they�*re going to build audience in these games, and they�*re going to tour within these games. um, and then you add things

like ai and ar being able to purchase digital assets, and you have a wholly new experience that�*s developed completely by the technology industry and owned and operated by the users. i love this idea of democratising the music industry. so if you don�*t have access to a studio or a band, you still have the tools to allow you to make music. that�*s great. but i wonder if, for example, it means the end of a global superstar? everybody can create music, everyone can share it around the world. where does it leave those global icons? yeah, but not anyone can be amazing. but what makes people amazing? um, you know, i have the fortune, i�*ve had the fortune to work with a lot of great artists and producers and songwriters, and the through line is that they will put themselves out there in ways that i would never do that. and that�*s what makes an artist, um, someone, someone who�*s willing to over and over express themselves and then funnel that

in to stories that feel like they connect to a lot of different people. i think that some of the best artists in the future are going to still be able to do that. they understand how to tie, um, little significant, you know, things in your life together in a way that makes you go, wow. you�*ve been doing this a long time. you�*ve been in the industry for a while. what�*s your assessment of what the future looks like? what will the industry look like five years from now? i think in the next five to ten years, we are going to be blurring the lines of reality. um, and that�*s why i think the best artists, the ones who are most expressive and understand to tell stories, are going to make these fantastical worlds that you can inhabit. um, much like what grimes did, where she�*s created this fantastical character called grimes. and now people can inhabit the voice of grimes and collaborate with grimes.

and now what�*s happening is people are collaboratively producing grimes ai, this new character that grimes has made. and so i think there�*s going to be more artists who understand how to tell stories like that in the future and wield the technology in an incredible way. daouda leonard, thank you for being on the programme this week. thank you. now, that�*s all from us on the programme this week. there�*s much more on the global economy, on the bbc website and the bbc news app. but thanks for your company this week. we�*ll see you very soon, bye—bye. hello. we�*ve had a real mixture of weather to start off the weekend. across east anglia, south—east england, a lot of cloud, an odd spit of drizzle. we had a weather front that brought some rain to northern ireland and scotland, delivering 22 millimetres into the highlands, the wettest place in the uk, but then we had this slice of sunshine stretching from east scotland down towards south west england, where we had 8.5 hours of sunshine in camborne in cornwall, and an 18 celsius

heat in dorset in bournemouth. now, looking at the weather picture at the moment, weak weather fronts are moving southeast, just a lump of cloud by the time it reaches east anglia. that cloud keeping temperatures up at around seven degrees 01’ so. otherwise, it�*s going to be quite a cold start to your sunday morning, with temperatures three to five degrees pretty widely. it might be chilly, but it�*s going to be a lovely start to your sunday morning as well. now, we�*ll keep the sunshine all day across england and wales, but for scotland and northern ireland, a weather front is on the way through the afternoon, bringing cloud and rain in. it�*s also going to turn quite windy, with gusts running into the 40s of miles an hour. our temperatures on sunday afternoon running close to average for the time of year, ranging from around 11—15 degrees, north to south. now, that rain across northern areas of the uk through sunday night pushes southwards, whilst weakening those fronts again, moving in towards higher pressure. and so, as we look at the forecast for monday, it�*s going to be quite a dull and damp day for england and wales, some mist and fog patches up over

the high ground. a bit of drizzle to start the day in scotland and northern ireland, with extensive cloud, but it should turn at least a little bit drier and perhaps a few bright spells around. a bit milderfor northern areas, temperatures coming up to 15 in belfast and glasgow, but not a great deal of sunshine around. now, into tuesday, high pressure starts to move in across the uk. it�*s quite weak initially, and there�*s going to be extensive cloud beneath that area of high pressure. so for tuesday, it�*s a grey day, a few spots of morning drizzle. in the afternoon, one or two brighter spells, but predominately, it�*s a cloudy looking day on tuesday. temperatures, 14—16 degrees, and so on the mild side of things for this time of year. that area of high pressure continues to build across the uk through wednesday and thursday, so there should be a few more breaks in the cloud developing, particularly close to the centre of the high pressure towards england and wales, so the weather turning a bit brighter. across northern areas of the uk later in the week, it is set to turn colder, and we might even see some rain or wintry showers across the far north of scotland.

good morning. welcome to breakfast

with rogerjohnson and nina warhurst. our headlines today: president biden says he hopes that israel�*s airstrikes against iran, which killed four soldiers, will mark the end of the confrontation between the countries. the king will return to what royal aides call a normal schedule of overseas trips next year after coping well with his tour of australia and samoa. rachel reeves pledges £1.11 billion to rebuild crumbling schools in england and a major investment in free breakfast clubs in her first budget as chancellor. ahead of remembrance sunday, we visit a worcestershire village which has unveiled an installation containing six thousand knitted poppies. it�*s a familiar sight — manchester city are back on top of the premier league. erling haaland put them there but will they still be leaders come the end of the day?

and a sunny bit chilly start to sunday. we