The man who fought napster is now fighting AI

Takeaways

• Fans now side with labels against AI. Glazier says this disruption differs from Napster because the industry and fans row in the same direction ⁴. He told the Los Angeles Times that being the RIAA is more fun now that consumers fight the AI giants instead of the RIAA fighting consumers ⁴.
• Music business is tiny next to AI. The entire US recorded music business was $11bn at wholesale last year ³. Glazier says if AI companies use everything humanity created to make money while depleting future human music, society moves backward ⁷.
• RIAA sues to secure a licensing market. Glazier says the RIAA brought its case so every company knows it cannot reproduce music without consent or compensation, after which the marketplace can develop ¹. The suit against Suno uses copyright's substitution test, where AI output replaces the original work ¹.
• Google's fair use stance is contradictory. Patel notes Google calls search a fair use regime and litigated Google Books, while YouTube operates as a licensing business ². Patel says other AI companies scraped YouTube and Google cannot yell because it would have to reveal that it scraped YouTube too ⁸.
• Track-level AI labels are the immediate fix. Glazier says making a song by typing 18 words into Suno and putting it on Spotify through DistroKid won't cut it ⁹. He argues labelling is the immediate marketplace fix, and track-level labels are needed rather than Spotify's credits-level disclosure ⁶.
• Charts will exclude nonhuman recordings. Chart eligibility programmes outside Billboard and OCC now rule that unless a recording is substantially human it is not eligible ¹⁰. What counts as substantially human may change, but Glazier says it must stay in the creator's control ¹¹.

The NO FAKES Act

1. Under federal law nobody has a right to their own voice or likeness, and most people lack it under state law too ⁵.
2. The RIAA worked with First Amendment scholars, YouTube, OpenAI and Public Knowledge on an intellectual-property-style takedown regime ¹².
3. The regime includes penalties for false notices and counter-notices, with a quick judicial route for constitutional questions because platforms should not decide them ¹³.
4. Glazier doubts a national security exemption applies because copying Drake is not a security risk ¹⁴.