Independent musicians sue Google over YouTube data used for Lyria

In short: Independent musicians are suing Google, claiming it used their YouTube uploads to train its Lyria 3 music AI, and Google is trying to get the case thrown out.

What happened

A group of independent musicians has filed a lawsuit against Google. They say Google illegally used songs they uploaded to YouTube to help train Lyria 3, a system that can generate music.

Google has filed a motion to dismiss, which is a request for the court to end the case early. In its filing, Google argues the musicians cannot prove Google trained on their specific songs. Google also says that even if it did, YouTube’s Terms of Service give YouTube and Google a broad license to use uploaded content, including to copy it, share it, and create “derivative works” (new works based on the original).

When asked directly whether YouTube videos are used to train Lyria 3, Google declined to comment, according to the report. The Verge notes that YouTube has previously said “some portion” of videos may be used to train other Google AI systems, like Gemini. YouTube has also said it uses uploaded content to improve products across YouTube and Google, including through machine learning and AI (software that learns patterns from lots of examples, like studying many songs to learn common rhythms).

Why it matters

This case speaks to a basic question for anyone who uploads creative work online. If your music is on a platform like YouTube, the platform may treat it as usable material for training AI, depending on the rules you agreed to. It is like posting a recipe to a community cookbook, then learning the cookbook owner used everyone’s recipes to teach a new robot chef, and you are not sure whether that was allowed.

Source: The Verge AI