If You Upload To YouTube You Give Consent For AI Training
As if artists and bands don’t have enough competition already, AI-generated music has ratcheted the level up to a point that no one could’ve predicted a few years ago. Then the record labels and publishers turn around and sell out their artists by making deals with AI music platforms without the artist’s permission (and not paying them as well), and even then the indignity doesn’t stop there. YouTube is now claiming that if you upload a video onto its service, you automatically give permission for AI training of Google’s Lyria 3 model.
It seems that no one knew this, and maybe even YouTube didn’t either until it became a convenient argument against a lawsuit filed by a group of indie artists. The gist of the suit is that Google had the ability to do ethical training by easily informing the artists and labels (who they already had deals with), but instead chose to cheap-out and train under the table.
Not Fair Use This Time
Google wants the lawsuit thrown out, but not because of the usual “fair use” argument where they state the music is used for educational purposes. They’re saying that if you agreed to YouTube’s terms of service (which you need in order to post a video), then you agreed to let them use your content for AI training.
In its submission, Google states that creators grant to YouTube, and its “affiliates”, a “worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sub-licensable and transferable license” to use uploaded content to “reproduce, distribute and prepare derivative works”. “Affiliates” (which is the key word here) refers to any division of Google owner Alphabet Inc, they add.
In Google’s opinion, it doesn’t need your permission to steal your content to train its AI. If you ever uploaded a video, you agreed to the terms of service.
The saving grace here is that Lyria isn’t that popular. In fact, most people aren’t even aware of it. Plus it still has a lot of limitations, like a limit of 3 minutes songs. But using this strategy certainly creates a bad precedent that I’m sure you’ll see followed by other tech companies.
We still don’t know how the court will receive this submission, but either way it’s not making Google look good. For a company who’s motto once was “Don’t be evil,” they sure look like they’re leaning into the dark side.
