Apple MusicIt’s about to become easier to recognise AI-generated content on Apple Music, with the platform launching its new Transparency Tags – an optional method for distributors to disclose machine-assisted creations.
According to Music Business Worldwide, the newly-launched tags were outlined in a newsletter sent to Apple’s industry partners last week.
These tags (which can be viewed in the latest update to Apple Music Specification) refer to four main aspects of the song itself – Album Artwork, Composition, Music Video, and Track – and disclose whether AI-generated content was used in their creation.
The Album Artwork tag is applied at the album level, and relates to whether “artificial intelligence is used to generate a material portion of the content.” The other tags are applied at a track level, with the Music Video tag relating to whether artificial intelligence has been utilised in its visual elements.
The Track and Composition tags are a little harder to discern, with the former relating to AI’s use in a “material portion of a sound recording”, while the latter outlines AI’s use in a “material portion of any music compositions embodied in a track.”
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Notably, these tags are all optional, meaning that they will only point out AI usage in the tracks and album artwork if distributors and record labels choose to do so.
“Proper tagging of content is the first step in giving the music industry the data and tools needed to develop thoughtful policies around AI,” Apple wrote in their newsletter, “and we believe labels and distributors must take an active role in reporting when the content they deliver is created using AI.”
Furthermore, Apple noted that these nascent tagging requirements provide “a concrete first step toward the transparency necessary for the industry to establish best practices and policies that work for everyone.”
Apple Music’s implementation of these tags come almost six months after rival platform Spotify announced a new batch of AI-related protections for artists and creators on the platform.
Alongside a new impersonation policy and investing more resources into their content mismatch process, Spotify also included a new industry standard disclosure for music which features AI.
Noting that the current system ignores the spectrum-based utilisation of AI and simply distils it into a binary system of whether a creation does or does not contain AI, this new industry standard will give greater information as how and where AI has played a role in the creative process.
Developing the new standard through DDEX, the information will be submitted through labels, distributors, and music partners, and will be displayed across the Spotify app, meaning that both artists and rights-holders are able to disclose whether AI was used in terms of vocal generation, instrumentation, or post-production.
It remains to be seen whether or not platforms such as Apple Music and Spotify will employ any AI detection software in this process going forward, or if it will instead rely on an optional, honour system approach as it currently does.
