One of the more established uses of AI is producing music from other music. There are many terms for this, but the word most used to label these creative endeavours is Mashup. Mashup culture is well established, and after many years of development it can be very sophisticated indeed.
The history of mashups can be traced back to the very early 20th century, but they became popular in the 1960s – in 1967 Harry Nilsson’s Pandemonium Shadow Show features a mashup of his own vocals over the Beatles’ “You Can’t Do That” – but the mashup culture was boosted by the rise of the Internet, and took on a life of its own in the early 2000s, developing enthusiastic audiences.
The contemporary “mashup” can refer to many different types of content, including music, video, and web applications. Some mashups are called “remixes” or “duets” if sung by two musicians, but the term mashup here means a song that combines elements from two or more pre-recorded songs.
Some fine examples of modern-day mashups are to be found in plain sight on YouTube, where a thriving sub-culture has evolved mostly due to two things – access to ever-improving technology, and law. There are many different takes on what makes a good mashup, from sonically perfect beat-matched mixes, to political messaging, to artistic experiments the like of which you have not heard, to the often hilarious twists of expectation from ThereIRuinedIt which while tongue-in-cheek is as polished as any.
Looking at the development of technology and the ‘theft’ of other people’s content indicates that if you want to play ball and keep your content online you simply have to observe the agreed rules. YouTube, owned by Google, has easy to follow rules, which they are if not followed will cause your creative mashup works to be removed. But it’s not so difficult to describe your work according to the “Disclosing use of altered or synthetic content” code (see excerpt below). Even then, you probably won’t make any money from your mashups – any funds derived tend to be funnelled to the original works’ copyright owners. Then again, you just might receive an accolade – sometimes artists like a remix enough to use it, telling their fans it’s worth a listen, and boosting your listenership.
So what exactly is “altered or synthetic content” ? Google’s terms explain all.
GO, GOOGLE
Disclosing use of altered or synthetic content
We encourage creators’ innovative and responsible use of content editing or generation tools. At the same time, we recognize that viewers want to know if what they’re watching or listening to is real.
To help keep viewers informed about the content they’re viewing, we require creators to disclose content that is meaningfully altered or synthetically generated when it seems realistic.Creators must disclose content that:
Makes a real person appear to say or do something they didn’t do
Alters footage of a real event or place
Generates a realistic-looking scene that didn’t actually occur
This could include content that is fully or partially altered or created using audio, video or image creation or editing tools.Disclose using the ‘altered content’ setting in YouTube Studio
To disclose content that is meaningfully altered or synthetically generated, the ‘altered content’ setting is available to creators using YouTube Studio on a computer or mobile device. We’ll expand this setting to other devices and YouTube apps in the future.After a creator selects this field and uploads content, a label will appear in their video’s expanded description.Creators who make a YouTube Short using Dream Track or Dream Screen, YouTube’s generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools, don’t need to take extra steps to disclose. The tool will automatically disclose the use of AI for creators. For other AI tools, creators need to disclose their use during the upload flow.
Examples of altered or synthetic content
The following list includes examples of altered or synthetic content. Altered or synthetic content can include content that is fully or partially altered or created using any audio, video, image creation or editing tools. Realistic content and meaningful changes require disclosure, while unrealistic or minor edits don’t. Keep in mind, this isn’t a complete list.
END GOOGLE
So if you want to make a mashup, there is little to stop you these days because of legislation, which will generally let you do as you wish so long as you observe the broadly international rules.
And here for a finale is a particularly fine example from ThereIRuinedIt. How does he make the singing sound so natural? First, he’s a good producer, second, he’s a natural vocal mimic – yes that’s him providing the voice. Third, AI does a lot of smoothing, enhancing, convincing the ear that it really is John Denver singing ‘War Pigs’. Watch the video to the end and read the disclaimers which prevent the videos from being removed. Enjoy.
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