We’ve written so much about China-headquartered music streaming firm Tencent Music Leisure’s AI-related endeavors.
In Could, for instance, we instructed you in regards to the firm’s AI-powered tech, which it claims can “predict the following hit tune”.
And in July, we reported on Tencent Music-owned Kugou Music’s AI singing know-how referred to as KUGOU AIK, which is claimed to be the world’s first multi-lingual AI singing know-how.
Most not too long ago, in its inaugural Environmental, Social and Governance report, the corporate revealed that it’s “strategically deploying superior AI instruments” to crack down on copyright infringement on its platforms amid the rise of AI-generated music.
TME operates the QQ Music, Kugou, and Kuwo platforms and the karaoke app WeSing. It had 117 million paying customers of its on-line music platforms on the shut of June, based on the agency’s Q2 report launched in August 13.
Within the part of the ESG report devoted to Mental Property Rights, TME addressed the rise of AI and famous that “as AI know-how quickly advances,” the corporate has “strengthened” its “IP rights safety requirements” to take care of what it calls “the rising use of AI-generated content material”.
“We imagine AI must be a supportive instrument reasonably than an alternative to musicians creating unique works.”
Tencent Music Leisure
In line with TME: “We imagine AI must be a supportive instrument reasonably than an alternative to musicians creating unique works. We implement compliance assessments and steady monitoring of AI merchandise and operations to make sure that AI-generated musical content material is correctly licensed and musicians’ inventive works are totally protected.”
Moreover, TME stated in its ESG report that it goals to “reduce copyright infringements by strategically deploying superior AI instruments to mechanically determine and evaluate content material suspected of infringement”.
In April, TME revealed in its annual report, filed with the US Securities and Change Fee, that it was going through 695 copyright infringement lawsuits as of the top of 2023.
“As of December 31, 2023, there have been 695 lawsuits pending in reference to alleged copyright infringement on our platform in opposition to us or our associates, with an mixture quantity of damages sought of roughly RMB281.3 million ($39.6 million),” the annual report states.
“The [TME] Group is presently not a celebration to, and we aren’t conscious of any risk of, any such authorized or administrative proceedings that, within the opinion of our administration, are more likely to have any materials and antagonistic impact on our enterprise, monetary situation, money circulate or outcomes of operations.”
The numbers supplied by TME advised that many of those lawsuits had been pretty small, with $39.6 million on the road throughout all 695 circumstances, which suggests a median of just below $57,000 in damages sought per case.
Elsewhere in its new ESG report, printed on the finish of September, TME stated that it’s “dedicated to mental property rights safety and continues to take a management function in enhancing China’s music and audio copyright setting.”
The corporate famous that it “respects and reinforces creators’ rights to their mental property” on its platform.
TME stated that it has formulated an “IP infringement blacklist” and that any new content material that finally ends up on its blacklist is “topic to a overview to find out whether or not it infringes on any copyright”.
Infringing content material is then completely faraway from its platforms. “These strategies successfully reduce infringement upon different events’ copyrights on the supply,” based on TME.
“We implement compliance assessments and steady monitoring of AI merchandise and operations to make sure that AI-generated musical content material is correctly licensed and musicians’ inventive works are totally protected.”
“We implement compliance assessments and steady monitoring of AI merchandise and operations to make sure that AI-generated musical content material is correctly licensed and musicians’ inventive works are totally protected.”
Tencent Music Leisure
TME’s ESG report additionally revealed stats about its personal IP, protected through an unlimited international trove of patents and logos.
In line with the report, Tencent Music Leisure had utilized for 4,768 patents as of the top December 2023.
Of these purposes, 2,564 of them had been granted by the China Nationwide Mental Property Administration and by abroad patent workplaces as of the top of final 12 months,
TME had additionally utilized for 6,111 logos as of the top of final 12 months, 4,295 of which had been registered with the China Nationwide Mental Property Administration and abroad
Tencent Music additionally had 694 “software program copyrights” registered with the Copyright Safety Middle of the Folks’s Republic of China
Music Enterprise Worldwide