The issue of AI and artist likeness is becoming one of the hottest topics at the intersection of tech and music.
While the industry has responded with requisite concern to AI-driven copyright infringement and the inundation of DSPs by AI slop, likeness is trickier. We’re talking about not only unauthorized use of artists’ images, sounds and styles by fans but celebrity “identity theft” by bad actors.
Dan Neely of the tech company Vermillio has been working on this problem as assiduously as anyone. Neely helpfully distinguishes fan inventions from more nefarious uses as “fun vs. fuckery,” and TraceID, the tech under Vermillio’s hood, is applicable to both.