International Music Summit
“I’ve not yet heard a track created completely from scratch with AI that’s not utter shite. I find that quite reassuring,” – CEO of The Other Songs
“I’ve not yet heard a track created completely from scratch with AI that’s not utter shite. I find that quite reassuring,” said Alastair Webber, CEO and Co-Founder of The Other Songs, at this year’s IMS Ibiza. The comment, half-joking and half-dead serious, hit a nerve in a room full of industry heads quietly trying to make peace with a fast-approaching future.
Webber’s company, The Other Songs, is a London-based label and publishing company that’s less interested in chasing the latest trends and more focused on discovering and developing songwriters and artists with longevity.
This year’s IMS Ibiza spent a lot of time talking about AI—how to regulate it, how to live with it, and how not to let it flatten the creative ecosystem. Webber’s quote didn’t come from a place of resistance to change, but from a frustration that the conversation is already being skewed. As he pointed out, governments in the UK and elsewhere are floating changes to copyright law that would allow AI companies to scrape copyrighted material freely for training. That, he says, is “completely outrageous.”
AI might be a useful tool for sketching ideas or speeding up workflow, but it’s not about to replace the feeling that lives inside a really great song.
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