Speaker 1: W m n H will rip the normals.
Speaker 2: We're back from the brain.
Speaker 3: Welcome everybody. We have entered our number three numerow trace
of Matt Connorton Unleashed and we are live from the
studios of w m n H ninety five point three
f Inglorious Manchester, New Hampshire. Of course, you can stream
the show anywhere. Go to Matt connorton dot com slash
live for all of your live streaming options, social media links,
contact info, show archives, etc. Etc. Today is Saturday, January seventeen,
two thousand and twenty six. Hey, by the way, I
did put this up on YouTube on the IBM Nation
YouTube channel, but myself and Eric Pilcher. Of course, Eric
and I host a podcast on the weekends. We'll be
doing another one Sunday night, of course, Tough Bumps, and
Eric has contributed many times to this program with his
classic film reviews, which we'll be coming back at some
point in the future. But Eric and I were actually
mentioned on a very popular podcast called Nobody Likes Onions
hosted by Patrick Melton. And I've been a fan of
Patrick Melton and his podcast for a long time, so
it was kind of cool to see that on YouTube
he had mentioned US, and but I did clip the
the specific part where he talks about Eric Pilter and
I and I did put it up on the IPM
Nation YouTube channel. So I think the title of the
video is Matt Connerton and Eric Pilcher mentioned by Patrick
Milton on Nobody Likes Onions. So if you find the clip,
you know, I'm not going to get into why he
was talking about us. I will leave that to you
to find the clip and watch it. But all will
be evident and apparent. When you watch the full clip,
you'll get the context of it. But anyway, that was
kind of fun. I thought i'd mentioned that. But Tough
Bumps will be on of course tomorrow night, Sunday night,
as we usually do, usually around seven six or seven
pm Eastern. The time is not you know, when you're
when you're doing a streaming show. I mean, obviously a
radio show has to be at a set time every
week or every day, whatever it is, right, you know,
when you do a live radio show with podcasts and streaming,
you can kind of do it however you want. You
know a lot of successful streamers in this day and
age use the it's on when it's on schedule where basically,
you know, you subscribe to the podcast and then you
know if they're going If they're going live, you get
a notification through social media because you've subscribed to it
that oh they're live, and then you go and you
watch it live or listen to it live, or you
just get it later. I mean, I know with Tough Bumps,
a lot of our listeners just get the show later
because we don't really announce because we're never really sure
exactly what time we're going to be on. But anyway,
but we will be on at some point tomorrow night.
Tough Bumps streams on YouTube and Facebook and Twitch and
even LinkedIn believe it or not. But yeah, we're in
various places, and then of course it goes out on
all the podcast platforms. So please subscribe, like and subscribe
if you check out the show on YouTube. Anyway, I
wanted to mention that quickly. But the other thing I
wanted to mention is so tonight, and I refer to
this early in the show today. But for those of
you listening live on Saturday, January seventeenth, tonight, there is
a show at Jewel Jewel Music Venue at sixty one
Canal Street right across the street actually from where we
are here at WM ANDH. Tonight it is Pulsifier. They've
been on the show with us and they are playing
a show tonight. Let's see. They are going to be
there with Ashes of the Priest, which is a Lamb
of God a tribute band, and a Sun and Steel
which is an Iron Maiden tribute band. Also bug bag
Lady almost said bug Lady. Bag Lady is going to
be there. But this is Pulsifier's last show in the
area before they go out on their big national tour.
They're going back out on tour. They're based in Portland, Maine,
I believe, but they're going to be here tonight in Manchester.
They invited Jenny and I to go to the show,
so we will be there. Pulsifier great band. I'm actually
going to play one of their tracks in a moment
that we featured the last time they were on the
show with us. But so that is going to be tonight,
so Jenny and I will be there, So come down
and say hello. Show starts at eight pm at Jewel
It is twenty one plus Jewel Music Venue, sixty one
Canal Street right here in Manchester. That will be happening
this evening. I'm sure the roads will be fine. It's
been snowing here, but it's been a light snow. For
those of you watching early, we put on the wad shot.
If you happen to be watching the video of the show,
you can see on the big screen behind me. Roads
are fine. It's still snowing, but it's it's light. It's
not a big deal. It's not adding up to anything.
So so far this winter, I feel like we've only
had one real major snowstorm, but which is not unusual.
Winter's here. You know, I grew up in New Hampshire.
Winter's here definitely easier than when I was a kid,
that's for sure. We had a lot less snow than
we did when I was growing up. But let's do this.
I want to play a track from Pulsifier, my personal favorite.
So I'll be a little bit selfish here, but this
is this is a song called Venomous Thing. Sounds really
good live. I'm sure they'll play it live tonight at Jewel.
But this is such a great track. Then when we
come back from this, we got a little music news
to cover. So some interesting things that have happened recently
in the music industry. But here it is, this is
this venomous thing and the band is Pulsifier.
Speaker 1: Clungs with a head.
Speaker 4: He much cool, shadows, cool did yesterday.
Speaker 1: Dancing with move and you can't be saved from.
Speaker 5: Said arts.
Speaker 2: Really when you came up to.
Speaker 6: You say, can you'll find been all little spir Chevy star.
Speaker 7: Somewhere the.
Speaker 5: Hart me look at Jewelren been all.
Speaker 1: Girl spir come back to pray? So why let you fa.
Speaker 8: And don't be placed in it?
Speaker 5: You don't want to go uted by face and.
Speaker 1: I don't want to know.
Speaker 5: You gonna missed poison.
Speaker 4: You.
Speaker 7: Kurt say, I'm getting my.
Speaker 5: Bloxary now it's just summer.
Speaker 1: Try Sam Chevy the god what okay?
Speaker 5: Don't come about okay?
Speaker 1: So what can't you.
Speaker 7: Vic don't try say.
Speaker 5: Nating control, shooting your veno like shots of control.
Speaker 2: Hold don't me.
Speaker 1: Try not to try?
Speaker 5: Could stop hold me under choice?
Speaker 1: Mostpirable?
Speaker 5: Dan sat offers.
Speaker 1: Show it was gone from okay again, Jo.
Speaker 7: Come back?
Speaker 5: Don't want you again? Not says j J.
Speaker 7: Had stop cook ber what b J down to?
Speaker 8: What fraid to that down? What fraid that down? W
brad to that down?
Speaker 3: That is venomous thing. The band is Pulsifier and they
are playing tonight, January seventeen at Jewel Music Venue, right
across the street from where we are here at the
radio station. Jewel is at sixty one Canal Street, and
they are going to be performing tonight and come see
Jenny and I were going to be there for that,
So really looking forward to that. It's such a great band,
and I wanted to, you know, I did mention some
music news and it's funny. I had forgotten about this
something that happened recently, a couple weeks ago, and then
we have a couple things that are a little more recent.
But in case you missed this story, this is kind
of fun. This happened closer to the beginning of the month.
But what reminded me of it is one of the
bands playing tonight with Pulsifier, a Jewel happens be a
Lamb of God tribute band, and Lamb of God was
in the news recently for kind of a silly reason.
But here's what happened. So this is from Billboard dot Com.
Stub Hub apologizes after mistakenly listing Lamb of God as
Christian concert The metal bands frontman joked about the mistake
on his social media So if you miss this, here's
what happened. So heavy metal fans in South Carolina were
disappointed to discover that the Lamb of God concert they
expected was actually a performance about the birth of Jesus Christ,
you know, because it was Christmas time. Ticket reseller stub
hub apologized on Monday, December twenty second after accidentally listing
the Virginia based rock band instead of Christian musician Andrew
Peterson's Behold the Lamb of God, a concert featuring music
about the stories of Christ, held at the Spartanburg Memorial
Auditorium on December twentieth. So, just to be clear, Just
to be clear, So it was not that this production
was also called Lamb of God. The name of the production.
The full name of the production was Andrew Peterson's Behold
the Lamb of God, not simply Lamb of God. But
stub Hub put it on their website as simply Lamb
of God, so they were clearly derelict in this. It
says here again. This is from Billboard dot Com. In
the days leading up to Peterson's show, the stub Hub
listing featured a photo of Lamb of God frontman Randy
Blythe and listed the concert as a top trending event
at the Spartanburg Memorial Auditorium, according to CBS affiliate WSPA
in Spartanburg. Yeah, so, not only did they screw up.
I don't know if this is an AI think maybe
they let AI do their listings. I don't know. But
not only did they list it as simply Lamb of God,
but they actually put a picture of the lead singer
of Lamb of God. So, you know, anyone who bought
tickets to this, you know, it's not it's certainly not
on them. It's not you know, sometimes consumers don't pay
attention to what they're buying, certainly, but that's not the
case here.
Speaker 9: This was.
Speaker 3: This could not have been more misleading, I say misleading.
I don't think it was intentional. I don't think stub
Hub was trying to intentionally bilk anyone out of their
ticket money by selling them a show that was not
what they not as advertised. I don't think that was
what was going on here, because I mean, even if
that was something nefarious that someone was doing, it would
have you know, they would have to have they would
have to have known it was gonna blow up in
their faces pretty quick. So just very very sloppy, it
says here. After realizing the error, StubHub apologized for the
confusion and offered refunds for anyone who purchased to to
the show. A stub Hub spokesperson said, quote, we acknowledge
the listing for the December twentieth event at Spartanburg Memorial
Auditorium was misleading and apologized for the confusion this caused.
Ahead of the show, We updated the event page and
reached out to customers to clarify the event details. Anyone
who purchased tickets under the impression this was a different
performance is encouraged to contact us. We'll honor a refund
under our fan protect guarantee. Unquote. I was their their statement.
It is interesting to me, there's no maybe I'm nitpicking,
but I always wonder about this kind of thing. It's
it's always interesting how things are worded. I'm always curious
about this because you know, I'm sure that whatever statement
stub Hub has to put out publicly in a situation
like this, it probably has to go through the legal team,
the legal team or whoever represents StubHub legally probably has
to approve it, sign off on it. There's no apology
in here, and again maybe I'm nitpicking, but there is
no apology. You know, there's not even a simple we
regret the error or we apologize for any confusion. There's nothing.
There's an acknowledgement, but that's not the same thing as
an apology. You know, someone can acknowledge they've done something wrong,
you know, Oh, I realized that wasn't the right thing
to do. And then the words that you might expect
to follow that are I'm sorry. I realized that wasn't
the right thing to do. I'm sorry. That's how normal
people talk. But this is written in a way that
there's no I'm sorry, there's no apology. It's just we acknowledge.
We acknowledge the listing was misleading. They don't even say
it was incorrect, because it was it was advertising a
completely different show. It says was misleading. Oh, you know what,
I'm sorry. It does say apologize and apologize for the
confusion this caused. Okay, but notice they don't say we
apologize for our mistake. They say we apologize for the
confusion this caused and Again, maybe I'm nitpicking, but you know,
I'm sure a lawyer had to approve that and and
probably said, don't don't say we're sorry for our mistake,
just say we're we're sorry for any confusion. Kind of
like you know what that reminds me of. It's like
when somebody says, like like say, somebody does something bad
to you, say, somebody says something rude to you, right,
and then they apologize. But instead of saying I'm sorry
about what I said or I apologize I was rude
to you, they say I'm sorry if you were bothered
by what I said, or I'm sorry if I offended you.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: It's sort of a way of it's sort of like
a sorry, not sorry. It's a way of saying i'm
sorry if because because it's it's you know, it's a
way of putting the blame on you, right. And I
don't know if when people do that, if they even
necessarily realize consciously in the moment that they're doing that.
It might be a subconscious thing. But when someone does
that when they say i'm sorry if or I'm sorry
you were offended by my words, what they're really doing Again,
they might not even mean to do it. It might
be a subconscious thing, but what they're really doing is
they're putting the blame on you. It's your fault that
you were offended, right, I'm sorry you took that the
wrong way.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 3: It's sort of a way of apologizing, but not really.
And I feel like a statement like this is, well,
we're sorry if if, if there was any confusion, No,
you you should be sorry that you listed the wrong show,
you listed completely the wrong show. You should say we're
sorry we made a mistake. No harm in that. But again,
a lawyer might look at that and say, don't acknowledge.
It's like when you get into a car accident, you're
never no matter how much it might be your fault.
What does what would the insurance company always say, don't acknowledge? Well,
I don't know if the insurance company says it, but
not literally. I don't think insurance companies actually say that.
They probably can't say it legally directly. But but what
does everyone always say, never admit fault, Never admit fault,
Let the insurance company handle it. You never say I'm sorry,
you know, I'm sorry I ran that red light and
t boned you. And wrecked your car and your passenger
is on their way to the emergency room. You know
you don't say that, right, right, They never say that.
You never admit fault, not and I'm sorry nothing, You
just you know, oops. But you let the insurance company
handle it because you don't want to be uh, you
don't want to put yourself in a bad position. I
feel like this is kind of that. I also think
it's interesting that in the statement it says anyone who
purchased tickets under the impression this was a different performance
is encouraged to contact us. That is weak. No, you
should not encourage them to contact you. You should be
sending an email to every single person who purchased a
ticket to this event and say, if if you purchase
these tickets in error, we would like to refund you.
You should be you know, it's your fault, stub Hub.
You should the honest should be on you contact each
each individual who made a purchase and say, uh, we'd
like to offer you a refund if this was the
wrong event. You should take the initiative. In my opinion,
so let's see.
Speaker 6: Oh.
Speaker 3: It also says here in the article lamb of God's
block again the lead singer from Randy Blath from Lamb
of God, took notice of the mistake and joked about
it on his Instagram story, reposting news reports about the
mix up. Oopsie the Rocker wrote over one story while
commenting Merry Christmas, Spartanburg on another and I was reading
something too about I guess he said in another interview
that this is not the first time and probably won't
be the last time something like this has happened. But
there you go. But for anyone who purchased take us
to that show, I hope you took advantage of getting
a refund from StubHub, who you know so graciously offered
you a refund if there was any confusion. Anyway, this
is more stuff we can talk about in the music industry.
There's a very very interesting story regarding AI. But let's
play another track again. We're playing some Pulsifier in this
hour because if you are listening live on Saturday, Pulsifier
is playing tonight at Jewel Show starts at eight pm.
Come see us. Jenny and I will be there. We're
gonna play another track from Pulsifier right now though. This
is called Scars, another great song and uh Pulsifier, great
band from Maine. They will be there tonight at Jewel
before they embark on their big tour. So if you
are local to this area, this will be your last
opportunity to see the band for a while because they're
gonna be out on a big national tour. So very
very happy for them, very excited. But here it is
from Pulsifier. This is called scars Heaven.
Speaker 10: No, that's gonna set you, Holland you was never good enough.
Thus my sense give that it all to what do
on action?
Speaker 3: So mad a put me.
Speaker 2: Still, tut me out.
Speaker 7: Matter how is that look?
Speaker 1: Come out with someone he loves me?
Speaker 5: Leave you'll No, No, this is about character and me
because we are to take evoution of reality.
Speaker 1: Russ I never gone a walk.
Speaker 10: Next checks for anyone. Check is closed, Helius time leaves.
Speaker 7: Day's lef further that he is gone.
Speaker 5: If we not know, I wouldn't Dave waste a second glance,
reaching a better place, second chat and somehow complete land.
Speaker 10: Most days I don't even think of you foking prisons
the food you used to be, Scott's.
Speaker 7: Remaining ter lean mind me.
Speaker 5: How your father you're know o catching me? Because where
You're done.
Speaker 1: Take about of reality? A cone shas.
Speaker 10: You're spider, tried to side till the two webb.
Speaker 1: Not a thread.
Speaker 2: Read me this sword forged thrill?
Speaker 1: Who I'm fast here stuck in your own.
Speaker 4: Cylone of mysery.
Speaker 7: Or you love?
Speaker 2: We give only pity.
Speaker 1: He can't dose the fla.
Speaker 2: Despot?
Speaker 1: What you don't do hers you start to cry? Dun,
what's not chockney? Pickup bad Pisa with glass call eating of.
Speaker 2: Strong So.
Speaker 11: Scott stompt Scott, it's a.
Speaker 1: High ba you go somewhere, King.
Speaker 7: Jo, change about version of reality. I'm giving going on connection,
no high.
Speaker 1: Highway. You no more controlling me.
Speaker 5: We are don't control the take abouts of reality?
Speaker 10: A connect shows for any one.
Speaker 2: Strong a word brock can.
Speaker 1: Scarce repaired?
Speaker 2: God strong web block can.
Speaker 1: Scarce repaired?
Speaker 3: That is scars. The band is Pulsifier, and Pulsifier will
be tonight at Jewel If you are listening live on Saturday.
It is January seventeen, twenty twenty six. Pulsifier performing tonight
at Jewel Music Venue, sixty nine Canal Street, right across
the street from where were here at at the radio station. Actually,
let's see they've also got Ashes of the Priest, which
is a Lamb of God tribute band, and Son and Steel,
an Iron Maiden tribute. Also bag Lady is performing, and
this will be Pulsifier's last local show in the area
before they go out on their big national tour. So
if you want to see them, if you're around Manchester,
New Hampshire, or even if you're a little ways out
but you want to make the drive, you should. They're
a great band. Jenny and I have seen them live
before and we're really looking forward tonight. Come down, say
hello to Jenny and I too. We'll be there. So
Pulsifier tonight at Jewel Doors at eight pm and twenty
one plus and that is this evening. So really that's
why we're playing some Pulsifi in this hour here on
Matt Conderton Unleashed got about. We're about halfway through our
number three New Marrow trace of the show today. I
did as promise. I wanted to talk about some news.
You know, we mentioned band Camp on the show earlier.
Band Camp two things that come up a lot on
the show. Band Camp the website of course bandcamp dot
com and AI and how AI is affecting how music
is made generated consumed in the music industry, and band
Camp has now banned AI generated music. They have made
it official, saying that they want musicians to keep making music.
And you know, we've got kind of a point counterpoint
on this to look at. But first, this is from
Music Businessworldwide dot com And this just happened, by the way,
They just announced this ban a couple days ago. According
to this website direct tofan platform, band Camp said it
will ban artificial intelligence generated music and audio from its platform,
including any use of AI tools to I personate other
artists or styles. The company made the announcement in a
post on Wednesday, January fourteenth. So this just happened. Like
I said a few days ago. Quote, something that always
strikes us as we put together a round up like
this is the sheer quantity of human creativity and passion
that artists express on band Camp every single day. The
fact that band camp is home to such a vibrant
community of real people making incredible music is something we
want to protect and maintain unquote. And by the way,
and this came up during our conversation with Adam Steglitch
have ever felt in the second hour, I think what
we talked about with Adam. It was either with Adam
or with Grimrock. No, I think it was with Adam.
We were talking about how band camp. One of the
reasons that I'm such a proponent of it is if
you get your music files from band Camp, You're getting
a high quality music file, much higher quality than say
if you're just streaming it on YouTube or something like that.
So just something to be aware of too. Band Camp
is really good that way. It says here again. According
to this article, band Camp said music and audio that
has created quote wholly or in substantial part by AI
unquote will no longer be allowed on the platform. The
company will also enforce existing policies against any use of
AI tools to copy other artists or styles. The company said, quote,
we want musicians to keep making music and for fans
have confidence that the music they find on band Camp
was created by humans unquote. Uh, this has come up
several times, like I said, over the past couple of years.
You know, Jenny and I talk about this all the
time on the show, the effect of AI in the
music industry and in the creation of music. And there
are some tools like pseudo dot com which we've experimented
with Live on the show that they can make some
really realistic sounding, you know, music that sounds like it
was made by humans, entirely by humans. One thing that look,
it's any platform has the right, whether it's band, whether
it's YouTube, whomever. As frustrating as it can be at times,
any platform has a right to police and control what
the content is, in this case music, when we talk
about band Camp, what the content is it is being
uploaded to their platform. However, I really worry with policies
like this that because it's going to happen, it's inevitable.
I guess it's an extent it's impossible to prevent this.
So it comes down to an extent to which it
ends up happening. Artists are going to get caught in
the net. And I don't mean net as an internet,
I mean net as in like a fishing net. Artists
are going to get caught in the net where whatever
software band Camp is using to detect AI generated music,
there are going to be artists who are flagged by
band Camp as being AI generated, who in fact are
not AI generated. It's going to happen. It's unavoidable. Okay,
So I'm not saying that because that's going to happen,
that band camp should not do this. I'm not saying that,
but what I am expressing is a concern that what
if it happens a lot. Because anybody who's ever created
anything that you've then put on the Internet for mass consumption,
whether it's music, whether it's a podcast, doing a radio
show that you know, in addition to being live on
FM radio also streams online. Anybody who's ever created anything
knows that sometimes you can get flagged, you can get tagged,
you can get dinged for something by these platforms that
is in fact, uh not correct, and you're getting blamed
for something that you didn't necessarily do.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: Look, I've I've been on YouTube for a very long time.
You know, it hasn't happened in a long time, but
I have in the past, more so when I was
doing a lot more political content, I would get I
would get dinged by YouTube for things. So you can't
say this, you can't talk about that. You've got to
strike on your account now because you said this, you
repeated this, and this is not accurate. You can't do that,
you know, and most of the time, not to sound
like I'm shirking responsibility. But most of the time it's like,
wait a minute, that's not what I said. They're flagging
me for I was quoting something somebody else said that
wasn't my opinion. Why are they Why am I being
penalized for repeating what somebody else said and making it clear?
But see, you know what happens is right there is
these the bots. They it's all it's AI. See, that's
the thing. They use AI to detect AI. That's what
band camp is going to be doing here. They're going
to use AI to detect when there's.
Speaker 2: AI and AI.
Speaker 3: The AI that they're using to detect whether or not
they there's AI is not going to get it right
every time, especially when because this is a little broad
when they say band camp, okay, band Camp said music
and audio that is created holly or in substantial part
by AI. Listen, any any recording studio you know that
that is modern is probably you know, probably has software
in their computers in that recording studio that use AI
to fix things, to tweak things. I mean, it's so
ingrained in everything, and it really has been with us
for you know, some people act like, oh, it's this
new thing it's not. It's just becoming a lot more
prevalent with access to tools like chat ebt and things
like this. But AI, there's always been an element of AI,
not always literally, but for a very long time in
everything we do. I mean, look, even twenty years ago,
you could go online, for example, and you could interact
with chatbots. Maybe there's a particular service that you are
having a problem with. Maybe you made a purchase through
a website, for example, and your item never arrived or
there's something wrong with it. So you go to the
website and you try to contact someone to get some
help with your purchase, and you end up talking to
someone through a chat box. Right, You're talking to someone,
but the person you're talking to doesn't seem to be
able to help you very much, or they seem to
be really easily confused by what you're trying to communicate
to them.
Speaker 7: Why.
Speaker 3: Because it's not an actual person, it's a chatbot. It's
a bot. It's AI that's been with us for a
very long time. So it's not new, it's much more prevalent,
especially over the last couple of years. It's much more
prevalent than it was and will continue to be it
seems to be accelerating and unavoidable, but it's not perfect,
and it makes mistakes. It's almost makes it kind of
human in that sense. Right now, as it becomes more sophisticated,
I presume it will make fewer and fewer mistakes, but
it still makes mistakes. So in other words, again, I
say all that to say, people are gonna get caught
up in this net. When I see these platforms saying well,
we're going to ban any use of AI in anything
that is uploaded to our platform, It's like, but how
are you going to accurately detect it? And I know
some will say, no, there's nothing to worry about here.
You'd be surprised. I've had people tell me that, Matt,
you'd be very surprised at how accurate AI can detect
when there's AI being used. I'm a little bit skeptical,
because again, I'm someone who has seen what happens when
AI tells me, for example, that I've done something wrong
on YouTube, when I didn't even do the thing that
I'm being accused of by this bot, and good luck
trying to talk to a real person, you know. Don't
get me wrong, There's been a couple instances where I've
appealed strikes on my channel and one. But I've also
lost some too that I shouldn't have lost. But again,
it's it is AI. It's not a human being I'm
talking to. So so that's my concern about this.
Speaker 2: Again.
Speaker 3: Ultimately, they can do whatever they want. It's their platform,
but I worry about people getting caught up in the
net who shouldn't be. It also says here again continuing
with this article, this is from Music Businessworldwide dot com.
It says band Camp said the new policy was driven
by quote the sheer quantity of human creativity and passion
that artists express on band Camp every single day unquote.
Users will be able to report suspected AI generated content
through band Camp's reporting tools. The company says it reserves
the right to remove music based on suspicion of AI generation.
The company said it will update the policy as AI
technology continues to develop. The announcement comes over four months
since band Camp launched a new thirteen dollars a month
subscription service that is human curated. The service gives users
access to monthly recorded selections, listening parties, recommendations, and exclusive
artists content. Band Camp general manager Dan Melnick at the
time said, quote, Instead of algorithms, fans get human curated
picks from some of the best DJs and journalists in
their respective areas. Exclusive interviews with artists and community listening parties,
vibrant music scenes made up of DJ's, journalists, fans and artists,
and band camp clubs reflect that as always, artists are
paid fairly and sit at the heart of the experience.
Unquote all right, well, I like that.
Speaker 9: I like that.
Speaker 3: Founded in two thousand and eight, band camp launched as
a direct to consumer alternative to record labels for artists.
It has since expanded its services to include features such
as ticket live streaming, and vinyl pressing. Artists like Peter
Gabriel and b York have placed their catalogs on the platform.
All Right, I don't want to get into the whole
history of band camp, but uh okay, and then it
gets into some more details about band Camp. Oh of
skipping down though, because Spotify is mentioned here, and I
remember we talked about this on the show too, and
I expressed the same concern when talking about Spotify removing
AI generated music. Some artists are going to get caught
in the net it says here. Spotify in September said
it removed more than seventy five million spammy tracks from
its platform over the past year. Amid the explosion of
generative AI tools, the streaming giant rolled out new policies
for managing AI generated content on its service to address that.
In November, French streaming platform Deezer said it receives over
fifty thousand fully AI generated tracks daily, or thirty four
percent of all tracks uploaded to its platform each day.
Oh my god, that's nuts. That is wild. Now, so
that's band Camp's position. Now someone has offered a I
don't know if rebuke is quite the right word, but
there's an artist because you would think, you would think
recording artists would be in favor of what band camp
is doing, and probably most are. But Holly Herndon says
band Camp's AI ban is misguided. This comes from stereogum
dot com. This went up just yesterday. Earlier this week,
band Camp issued a blanket ban on generative AI and
deep fake impersonations. The new measure makes band Camp an
exception on the streaming landscape, where AI music is becoming
more and more inescapable. Most of The reactions to this
band camp announcement were positive, but one artist who's not
applauding it is Holly Herndon, an experimental artist who has
long messed around with what she sees as the artistic
possibilities of AI technology. Holly Herndon has a PhD from
Stanford's Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics, and
she has made her most recent album, twenty nineteen's Proto
with Spawn and AI Baby, curated by Herndon and her
partner Matt Dryhurst. A few years ago, Herndon and Dryhurst
launched Spawning, a tool that allows artists to choose whether
or not their work will be used to train AI,
and that work earned them Austria's first Digital Human Rights Award. Interesting.
I didn't know that was a thing. On Wednesday, in
response to band Camp's new policy, Herndon tweeted this, putting
the ban in band camp it is a wicked problem.
So I understand what they are trying to do. I'm
sure the human moderators won't be banning artists exploring AI. Rather,
I hope will just be looking to filter out sound spam.
The gray area will only get larger m HM after
a negative response to that tweet. Herndon elaborated with a
thread and she said this, I understand why band camp
is taking this measure, but it's a tourniquet. The human
AI binary is not going to hold and will become
a matter of superficial optics. I already have more authorship
in my models than most pop stars do in their songs.
People will already be using models to generate songs they
then put a human filter on. Artists will integrate generated
passages into works they orchestrate, and will soon train their
own models. Another protection might be to flag accounts that
posts on an inhuman amount of content, but that too
may seem retrograde. We live with infinite media now. I
encourage platforms to be more curated, but enforcing a hard
human AI binary is not the right way to address
this long term. If an expert uses AI to help
them write an article they otherwise would not have the
time to complete, it will not be of less substance
than a non expert with time on their hands writing
something by hand. A practice or reputation of thought and
work developed over time is the best filter. The contemporary
demand for twenty four to seven content from people is
the problem. So that's that's basically her argument. So she's concerned.
She has some of the same concerns I do. I
mean from a little bit of a you know, from
a different perspective.
Speaker 6: But but.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, I think the tooth based is probably
pretty far out of the tube at this point. As
I like to say, Now, there's another element to this though,
and this is this is the part that people don't
talk about very much. But this came up on the
show not long ago. These streaming platforms because of the
rise of AI generated music and and how easy it
is to make it, and and it is a form
of spam. I think Holly Herndon referred to it as
sound spam when you just if you just make a
whole bunch of AI tracks and just upload them all
at once to Spotify and bandcamp, YouTube and wherever else.
It does cause a problem, uh, in terms of storage,
because you know, we like to think of you know,
it's just data. It's not it's not something you know
that you can touch or feel or it's or hold.
It's it's data. Is there. Therefore, there's just a it
doesn't take up any actual room anywhere. You just have
this infinite amount of storage space to put data. But
that's not true.
Speaker 2: You have to.
Speaker 3: You do have to create the physical mechanisms with which
to store that data, and you do have to make
more of those if you were in more data you
have to store. So if you think about this, I
don't know the numbers offhand how many different song files
are on band Camp and Spotify, and obviously it's in
the millions, perhaps in the billions, I don't know. But
if if that's all been ratcheted up exponentially because of
the rise and the ease with which you can create
AI generated music, then that's a problem. So of course
they have to find ways to filter this stuff out.
And then I find this, Uh, this is on Music
Business Worldwide dot com and this just went up a
couple of days ago. Music streaming. Music streaming platforms now
host a quarter of a billion tracks. Where does it end?
And uh, this is uh, this is short, but it
just kind of gives us an idea of the scope
of the concern here. So it says here there were
two hundred and fifty three million music tracks sitting on
audio streaming services at the close of twenty twenty five yep,
over a quarter of a million. According to new data
from Luminant's new annual report, that was that was up
only thirty seven point nine million tracks, an average of
one hundred and six thousand uploads per day. Most of
this music was far from popular. Almost half of the
two hundred and fifty three million files hosted by audio
platforms received fewer than ten streams last year. Almost three
quarters of it received fewer than one hundred annual streams,
and nearly nine tenths of it received fewer than one
thousand annual streams. We're obviously a long long way from
Apple's promise to deliver one thousand songs in your pocket
with the iPod ay. Yes, as AI generated music proliferates,
are we now just a few short years from the
likes of Spotify hosting quote one billion songs in your pocket?
And wouldn't such a title wave of content inevitably swamp
digital services while hurting artists, songwriters and the perceived value
of music amongst consumers. This is all, These are all
legitimate concerns. In my opinion, I don't know what the
answer is. By the way, off, I'm not here to
offer solutions because I have no idea what the answer
is to this, but these are legitimate concerts. A Universal
Music Group CEO and chairman, Sir Lucian Grange certainly thinks so,
and he's keen to stop it from happening. Last week,
Grange delivered a stark warning about AI generated content overwhelming
streaming platforms. In his twenty twenty six New Year's Address,
he wrote, quote, validating business models that failed to respect
artists work and creativity and promote the exponential growth of
AI slop on streaming platforms is a grave disservice to artists,
songwriters and all of us who work in music. Unquote,
this warning was not theoretical. Last year Spotify removed think
think about these numbers. Last year, Spotify removed over seventy
five million spammy tracks from its platform, while rival Deezer
reported receiving fifty thousand fully AI generated tracks per day,
accounting for thirty four percent of all daily uploads. So
think about that. So, on any given day, Deezer, what's
being uploaded? A third of it a third is AI
generated tracks. Yet, despite this aggressive purgeing of content, the
total amount of music and the global audio streaming ecosystem
continued to soar in twenty twenty five. Discussion around tracks
that attract fewer than one thousand streams per year is,
of course particularly relevant. Here illuminates new numbers help illustrate why,
with UMG's encouragement, audio streaming services move toward artist centric
style payment models a couple of years ago, and why
these models are now increasingly being stress tested by AI.
In early twenty twenty four, Spotify introduced a threshold requiring
tracks to attract at least one thousand plays in a
twelve month period to qualify for royalty payouts, which a
lot of people were mad about. They were critical of
I get it though at the time Spotify said ninety
nine point five percent of streams on its platform went
to tracks exceeding the one thousand annual streams threshold. Under
its new policy, it said each of those tracks would
earn more, with payouts previously going to sub one thousand
stream tracks redirected back into the royalty pool. Deezer's artist
centric model, launched in partnership with you Universal and Warner,
achieved a similar aim, providing a double boost in royalties
to artists with a minimum of one thousand streams per
month and five hundred unique listeners. This goes on. There's
a lot of numbers here and we don't have time
to get into all of it, but the article isn't
that long, so if you want to check it out,
music Businessworldwide dot com, which is a great website for
music news if you're interested in the industry and so forth.
But we are rapidly running out of time, so I
think we will close with that. I'm gonna sneak in
one more Pulsifier song though, let's see because so again
tonight and if you are listening live on Saturday, Pulsifier
will be at Music I'm sorry at Jewel Music Venue
I believe is the official name tonight at eight pm.
Show starts at eight pm. It is twenty one plus,
but Jenny and I will be there for the show,
so come see us. Really looking forward to that. Pulsifier
such a great band, really great live. It will be
our second time seeing them. And if you are in
the Manchester, New Hampshire area and you do want to
see Pulsifier, this will be the last opportunity to see
them for a little while around here because they are
going out on a big national tour, so not sure
when exactly they're going to be back. But let's see,
I was looking for a specific song here and I'm
not finding it. Oh, here it is, I found it. Yeah,
we'll play this track, war Cry. This is really good.
This will be a good way to close the show today.
Thank you everyone who joined us. Of course Adam Seglitch
from ever Felt always enjoy speaking with him, And of
course we talked to grim Rock in the first hour.
And uh, if you miss any part of today's show
and we'll be up in just a little bit at
w m n H radio dot org and of course
at my website Mattconnorton dot com. All right, that's gonna
do it for us for now. Hope to see you
a night at Jewel for Pulsifier. And we're gonna close
out this week's show with this. This is called war Cry.
Talk at you all a little bit later. Bye, everybody.
Speaker 10: When they hear the crown, it has been decided.
Speaker 6: I love the mind?
Speaker 1: Who has wrong?
Speaker 2: Was I one or lost? Before?
Speaker 4: Even Funck moved with confidence till time.
Speaker 10: Forward, without fear have to fall out.
Speaker 1: Clear victory is so near.
Speaker 4: Chance to break me.
Speaker 2: I will not be changed.
Speaker 4: High close minded things spirits wild and.
Speaker 12: Had to un the stop, so I no longer say
my shid all loud away A doors not follows me.
Speaker 5: From careful ins fight ok to fil me when this
long the hell name sittings back to me.
Speaker 2: Well cry.
Speaker 5: Little here your for cry, little hear your poor cry.
Screamer your poor cry.
Speaker 4: Carry out come qui as long as it takes to
today true the dump men names not as sin has
a new back then wiser each time I've baking again,
I'm nursed me put away prepared, so campares through rumer
where that's some difference because the fan should cry when
you're here.
Speaker 9: But that's when I turned by, had took son, so
I know them sy my hid blind you away quit dall.
Speaker 5: The next that follows me wo from cant the lance
fight a cat she rid of me when there's bars
warm bell pay cities after me.
Speaker 10: This is a call to battle, give it all fired
to survive.
Speaker 2: Time has come to make joy.
Speaker 4: How you live before you die, how you live before?
Speaker 1: So I had to listop so got.
Speaker 5: My shild longing away when dark and the side follows
me two frontful means fighte PoCA to win. When this
guy is one Their name is Cities after Me walka.
Speaker 1: WLCA.
Speaker 3: You are listening to Mattconnorton Unleashed on wm n H
ninety five point three