No sense of humour…DM vs Internet

edit: Chuck Norris hat den Song jetzt leider gelöscht. Und den Account.

Zweimal.

Das ist schon krass. Habe das jetzt nur über Händyspeaker gehört, keine Ahnung wie“gut“ das klingt. Ich habe aber schon schlechteres von der Band selber gehört.

 

[DanReed]

Verstehen, Bewusstsein, Gewissen, Leib-Seele-Problem, ... die Fragen, die die Menschheit seit jeher beschäftigen und auf die der Mensch keine Antworten zu finden in der Lage sein wird.

Nichtsdestotrotz ist es die Suche nach Antworten, die den Klumpen zwischen unseren Ohren auf Trab hält.

 

[Modulerche]

Möglicherweise könnte der Thread nun in 'Musikindustrie kümmert sich um KI' umbenannt werden.

Denn die Filme und der Account sind inzwischen bei YT verschwunden.

 

[Smai-Lee]

Aber alles was wirklich klug ist wäre echt genau was mich interessiert wie das "Verstehen" überhaupt entsteht und wieso und wo die Grenzen sind

Achtung Text:

Ein 'Verstehen' gibt es da nicht, das Verständnis ist in den Trainingsdaten direkt enthalten. Und das ist sogar recht simpel

Anfang 2000 habe ich mich mit SEO und Suchmaschinen beschäftigt und verschiedene Tools dazu programmmiert. Irgendwann kam die Idee auf, die Metatags aller Seiten im DMOZ Verzeichnis (na, wer kennt das noch) zu lesen. Also 300k URL eingesammelt und die Tags in eine Datenbank geschrieben. Eigentlich wollte ich nur ein paar Analysen drüber laufen lassen.

Das sah dann so aus:

1. Eintrag: forum, auto, verkehr, tipps, community, reifenwechsel, ölwechsel
2. Eintrag: homepage, katzen, katzenstreu, spielzeug, ernährung
3. Eintrag: tiere, hunde, katzen, mäuse, forum, treffen
4. Eintrag: haus, bauen, renovieren, streichen, möbel, einrichtung, putz, mörtel
5. Eintrag: onlineshop, bananen, orangen, birnen, äpfel, trauben, obst
[..]
x. Eintrag: lexikon, biologie, früchte, obst, nahrung, äpfel, karotten, gemüse, orangen, birnen

Wie man sieht, hat ein Mensch vorher schon Einteilungen getroffen und sich überlegt, was auf seine Homepage zutrifft und dementsprechend die Tags eingetragen. Spricht man über Autos, kommt man nicht drumrum aus dem gleichen Bereich andere Worte zu benutzen. Da haben wir den ersten Zusammenhang.

Wenn man diese Tags nun aufgedröselt neu arrangiert, kann man eintragsübergreifend Häufigkeiten in der Datenbank abfragen.
Nehmen wir 'Äpfel', das kommt in Zeile 5 und x vor. Nun nimmt man alle Tags aus Zeile 2 und Zeile x und schaut sich an, was dabei rauskommt:

2x Äpfel
2x Birnen
2x Orangen
2x Obst

Die Sachen, die nur einmal erwähnt werden, lasse ich hier aus, habe ich damals auch so gemacht um das 'Rauschen' zu entfernen, denn es interressiert nur der obere Teil, Lexikon spielt nur eine untergeordnete Rolle und viel mehr Vernüpfungen mit anderen Wortfeldern, wenn man denn genug Daten hat. Da steht dann mehrere 1000 male Apfel usw.
Wie man jetzt schon erkennen kann, sind in der Liste nur verwandte Begriffe. Hat man jetzt 300000 Zeilen mit 2 Millionen Wörtern entsteht ein riesiger Graph mit vielen Verknüpfungen. Genau das ist das 'Verständnis'.
Wie oben schon geschrieben, hat ein Mensch dieses Verständnis mitgebracht. Es ist in den Daten enthalten.

Das ganze habe ich dann Assoziator genannt und konnte so Texte ganz leicht damit klassifizieren und sortieren. Hat man in einer normalen Suchmaschine nach 'Banane' gesucht, kamen damals nur Seiten, die das Wort Banane enthalten haben. In meiner Suchmaschine habe ich dann aber nach allen verbundenen Wörtern gesucht und die Ausgabe aufgrund der Häufigkeit aus dem 'gelernten' Graph gewichtet. Nun wurden auch Seiten gefunden, die über Früchte geschrieben haben aber nicht unbedingt das Wort 'Banane' erwähnt hatten.

Die Maschine hatte also 'gelernt', das Bananen Obst und Früchte sind und mit Äpfeln und Orangen zu tun haben.

Abfragen nach 'Kultur' ergaben: Kunst, Musik, Sport, Gesellschaft [..]
Abfragen nach 'Glauben' ergaben: Gott, Jesus, Kirche [..]

Aber weiß die Maschine tatsächlich was Glauben oder Kultur ist? Jeder sagt jetzt sicher nein, die Maschine hat ja nur Häufigkeiten analysiert.

Jetzt die Ketzerfrage: Weiß ein Mensch, was Kultur ist? (10 Sekunden nachdenken)

Meiner Meinung nach weiß er es nicht. Er 'plappert' nur nach was er gelernt, gelesen, indoktriniert bekommen oder erfahren hat. Das sind seine Assoziationen zu dem Thema, seine Meinung. Die Ausgaben oben waren aus dem deutschen Kulturkreis, hätte ich islamische Seiten ausgelesen, wären dort andere Assoziationen zu lesen. Das nennt man heute den Bias. Das heute halluzinieren findet im unteren Teil statt, dort wo nicht unbedingt besonders viele Daten vorhanden sind. Allerdings sollte man auch diesen TTeill niicht aus den Augen verlieren, hier stecken wichtige Information, aber das würde den Langen Text noch viel länger machen.

edit: Die Grenzan kann man oben sehen, ohne Feedback mit Supervised Learning bleibt der Datensatz starr und ich kann keine Anfrage zu Synthesizer stellen, wenn das Wort nicht enthalten ist.

 

[Moogulator]

Ah, das Verstehen ist auf mein Gehirn gemünzt gewesen oder "uns, die sich fragen wie das exakt funktioniert". Das, was hier arbeitet ist natürlich so Magic™ weil das was hier passiert eben keine echte Klugheit oder Verständnis für Sätze drin steckt. Dennoch ist es nutzbar. Und das ist schon ziemlich interessant. Ich habe die alten Konzepte schon gelesen und bin auch ITler, also will sagen - es ist nur wichtig zu sehen - was da wirklich drin steckt und MEIN Verständnis oder unsere ist näher an dem was wirklich passiert. Faszinierend ist das schon. Egal -

Dein Beispiel ist sehr gut, hilft!
Wie das konkreter aussieht mit den Sprachmodellen und Dave Gahan - das wäre natürlich größer und stelle ich mir ähnlich vor, denn die Frage war ja - wieso frazzelt das so bei einigen Sounds und dennoch sind einige Stimmen verdammt klar und deutlich. Vermutlich weil diese eigentlich vorlagen und man sie eigentlich nutzt. Genau genommen ist es eine Mischung aus dem was es gibt und einer Verknüpfung. Und das ist meiner Ansicht dahinter. Wäre DM nicht dabei, gäbe es keine so gute Simulation - daher ist es auch wichtig. Bestehende Musik läuft gut, aber neue Stile und dazwischen wäre bei passenden Modellen möglich, aber wäre ähnlich "schwurbelig". Das ist so grob wie ich das erfassen und erklären würde ohne wirklich jede Anweisung wirklich zu kennen.

Gerne Korrektur rein geben. Auch gern auf unterschiedlichen Niveaus.

 

[Tom Noise]

Interessant. Nun ist der ganze youtube Account verschwunden und die DM KI songs auch.

 

[goorooj]

Interessant. Nun ist der ganze youtube Account verschwunden und die DM KI songs auch.

Eine Milliardenindustrie kämpft gerade um ihr Leben.

 

[Crabman]

Möglicherweise könnte der Thread nun in 'Musikindustrie kümmert sich um KI' umbenannt werden.

Denn die Filme und der Account sind inzwischen bei YT verschwunden.

Buuuh, Spielverderber. Da hat wohl jemand nasse Füße bekommen

Und noch nie vom Streisand Effekt gehört.

Und denkt, dass“löschen“ im Netz tatsächlich weg ist #Neuland

 

[intercorni]

Eine Milliardenindustrie kämpft gerade um ihr Leben.

Die AI Entwicklung ist nicht mehr aufzuhalten.

 

[Perry Staltic]

Da hat wohl jemand nasse Füße bekommen

Wieso "nasse"...?

 

[Moogulator]

Andrea, die Autorin wird sich vermutlich hier äußern. Behandelt sie lieb. Bis gleich.

 

[Crabman]

Wieso "nasse"...?

Ach stimmt

 

[ganje]

Kann mir jemand eine Kurzfassung vom Geschehen schreiben?

Habe es nicht verfolgt, nur mitbekommen, dass jemand etwas ähnliches zu Depeche Mode generiert hat. Warum heißt der Titel DM vs Internet? Haben sie es direkt kommentiert?

 

[Crossinger]

Haben sie es direkt kommentiert?

Nein, eher indirekt (vermutlich): nachdem das KI-Werk dem Original recht nahe gekommen ist, insbesondere Timbre von Dave Gahan, haben die Anwälte das kommentiert —> Takedown.

 

[KatsPurr]

Friendly greetings everyone!

I'm the crazy lady who made the AI Depeche mode songs you guys have been talking about in this thread. I've been following your conversation since the very beginning and originally found it because YouTube shows which external sites link to your videos.

I didn't register to the forum until today however (thank you again Moog for your help!) because I saw some of you wondering what the heck happened to the channel. So I thought I'd come in and tell you the whole story! I don't know any German, but I use the Google translate extension in Chrome. So feel free to continue discussing in German as I'll be able to understand (most of) it.

In any case, it's been fascinating to read what you guys have been discussing - also the speculation about the technical side of how AI works. For the record, this thread has been the most interesting and well balanced discussion out of all of the external links I discovered and this is the only one I felt any motivation to respond to.

1. If you're here for the technical discussion and have no interest in reading my long rant of what happened to my channel, feel free to skip the rest of this message and jump straight to asking me questions if you have any about the process of making the songs in Udio, or whatever else you might want to know.
2. If you're curious about what happened to the channel and why it was removed. Read on.

So, what happened to the channel?
As you have noticed, it has been removed. Let's go to April the 25th:

Thanks to the wild success of the first DM song (and I guess some of you might have seen the Rolling Stone article as well), I was able to fulfill the requirements to apply for partnership in YouTube. I was super happy and excited of course and immediately sent in the application. Then, only a couple of hours later I got emails from YouTube telling me that not only has THAT channel been removed, but also 3 others!



Of course I knew that there might be risks when I started posting the DM songs. Posting AI content is still so new, so it's still unclear where the boundaries are. I did try and make it extremely clear however, that it was AI and also did the "Altered content" disclosure in the video (which is a new thing YouTube introduced recently which requires YouTubers to disclose if something is AI generated). Point being: I tried to make it VERY clear it's AI and doesn't represent DM. The worst I was expecting is maybe the video getting taken down, or a copyright strike or a warning. But I never expected to lose my entire channel and lose 3 more channels in addition - all at the same time!

Channel 1 - This "Andrea Fryer" channel that had the DM songs on it: It was a small and rather dead channel anyhow, so not the end of the world to lose it
Channel 2 - One I made many years ago - made 1 video - never touched it after that. I could care less that I lost it.
Channel 3 - Partnered channel bringing in a little bit of money, but not so important. Unfortunate to lose since it was partnered, but not the end of the world.
Channel 4 - This was my LIFE! My daily job! All of the work I have done in the past half year has gone to this channel. It had almost 50K subscribers and it the statistics looked promising. It was literally paying my rent. Losing this channel has now changed my life as my income will suddenly stop. It's like getting fired from your daily work!

So why did it happen? And can I get my channels back?
The reason YouTube gave me for all 4 channels was "spam, deceptive practices and scams policy".

Since all 4 channels are completely unrelated, it's hard to know the actual reason. Because I have never done any of those things. I've always tried to follow YouTube rules. In fact my first YouTube channel was founded in 2006 and this is the first time I've ever had an issue!

With the Andrea Fryer channel I see only 4 possibilities:
1. When I got the invitation for partnership, they checked my channel and the person was uneducated with AI stuff, perhaps thought I was presenting the DM songs as if they were from the actual band (deceptive practices?)
2. There was a lot of hate in the comments from devout Depeche Mode fans. Could it be that many of these haters reported the video? The views got up to 102K views, so imagine if even 1K reported the video?
3. Perhaps the DM lawyers contacted YouTube and asked for the removal?
4. Maybe this has nothing at all to do with DM? Since this seems to be a suspension of my entire account in YouTube (and all it's related channels), maybe there was something bad in one of the other channels, and the Andrea Fryer channel was merely removed alongside the others as collateral damage.

I sent in appeals, but they were rejected. Today I chatted with support (so an actual human being) and this person sent in a second appeal on my behalf. I tried to ask why this happened, but she said she would respond later with an email. All seems very weird and confusing!

What's next?
I honestly don't know. I feel devastated, lost, bewildered, confused. It breaks my heart not being able to share the DM AI videos. I worked on them quite a bit and they were like little works of art - at least to me. I guess I could upload them to my personal website, but I wonder if that's a risk too. What's really sad is that I was working on the 5th DM song and it was going to be a good one! Also Udio just came out with new tools that fixed many of the issues I was having with the software before. (the glitch issue was fixed, also there are new timestamp tools for controlling how to extend the songs) So I would have been able to make even better songs. For understandable reasons, I now have no motivation to continue if I can't share my work.

Anyhow, sorry for the very long rant, but now you know what happened. If anyone has any questions about the DM songs, let me know!

I would also be curious to know if anyone else here tried making DM songs in Udio and whether you were successful!

 

[electric guillaume]

Did you talk to UDIO yet?
I guess they should be interested in avoiding their clients beeing shut down by YouTube when they use their software.

 

[Perry Staltic]

I guess I could upload them to my personal website, but I wonder if that's a risk too.

Hi Ma'am, I am not a lawyer, but in my personal opinion this isn't a copyright infringement, simply because the songs you generated with the help of AI are not by DM, and the voice we can hear is not the voice of Dave Gahan, it just sounds very similar. You could try to publish the pure songs on Spotify, too.

 

[KatsPurr]

Did you talk to UDIO yet? I guess they should be interested in avoiding their clients beeing shut down by YouTube when they use their software.

No I haven't, but that's a good point. I guess the main reason I haven't gone into that mindset yet is because it's still unclear to me what the actual reason is, and YouTube is being very secretive about it. If however, I find out that it WAS because of the Udio songs, then I will definitely let Udio know. Although the responsibility for intentionally trying to make DM sounding songs is of course on my own shoulders.

I am not a lawyer, but in my personal opinion this isn't a copyright infringement, simply because the songs you generated with the help of AI are not by DM, and the voice we can hear is not the voice of Dave Gahan, it just sounds very similar. You could try to publish the pure songs on Spotify, too.

Yeah it's a tricky one. And who is at fault? Udio for providing such software and allowing users to generate such songs? Me for trying to do it, even though I should know better? YouTube because their rules are not clear enough?
As for Spotify, I made the decision early on that I would not monetize these songs in any way, because it felt morally wrong. I'm not sure if you can even upload to Spotify without monetizing? And it would also feel wrong to have the "artist title" being my own name, when I feel like these songs aren't "mine" but mere experiments. It's really tricky to think about the moral side of this! I guess what I could do is contact my the web page hosting service and ask them whether it's risky to have those videos on their servers and what could follow from it.

 

[Perry Staltic]

Yeah it's a tricky one. And who is at fault? Udio for providing such software and allowing users to generate such songs? Me for trying to do it, even though I should know better? YouTube because their rules are not clear enough?

In my opinion in it's YouTube, just because of their faulty censorship system.

As for Spotify, I made the decision early on that I would not monetize these songs in any way, because it felt morally wrong. I'm not sure if you can even upload to Spotify without monetizing? And it would also feel wrong to have the "artist title" being my own name, when I feel like these songs aren't "mine" but mere experiments. It's really tricky to think about the moral side of this! I guess what I could do is contact my the web page hosting service and ask them whether it's risky to have those videos on their servers and what could follow from it.

You could donate the money for a good purpose...

 

[Crabman]

Friendly greetings everyone!

I'm the crazy lady who made the AI Depeche mode songs you guys have been talking about in this thread. I've been following your conversation since the very beginning and originally found it because YouTube shows which external sites link to your videos.

I didn't register to the forum until today however (thank you again Moog for your help!) because I saw some of you wondering what the heck happened to the channel. So I thought I'd come in and tell you the whole story! I don't know any German, but I use the Google translate extension in Chrome. So feel free to continue discussing in German as I'll be able to understand (most of) it.

In any case, it's been fascinating to read what you guys have been discussing - also the speculation about the technical side of how AI works. For the record, this thread has been the most interesting and well balanced discussion out of all of the external links I discovered and this is the only one I felt any motivation to respond to.

1. If you're here for the technical discussion and have no interest in reading my long rant of what happened to my channel, feel free to skip the rest of this message and jump straight to asking me questions if you have any about the process of making the songs in Udio, or whatever else you might want to know.
2. If you're curious about what happened to the channel and why it was removed. Read on.

So, what happened to the channel?
As you have noticed, it has been removed. Let's go to April the 25th:

Thanks to the wild success of the first DM song (and I guess some of you might have seen the Rolling Stone article as well), I was able to fulfill the requirements to apply for partnership in YouTube. I was super happy and excited of course and immediately sent in the application. Then, only a couple of hours later I got emails from YouTube telling me that not only has THAT channel been removed, but also 3 others!



Of course I knew that there might be risks when I started posting the DM songs. Posting AI content is still so new, so it's still unclear where the boundaries are. I did try and make it extremely clear however, that it was AI and also did the "Altered content" disclosure in the video (which is a new thing YouTube introduced recently which requires YouTubers to disclose if something is AI generated). Point being: I tried to make it VERY clear it's AI and doesn't represent DM. The worst I was expecting is maybe the video getting taken down, or a copyright strike or a warning. But I never expected to lose my entire channel and lose 3 more channels in addition - all at the same time!

Channel 1 - This "Andrea Fryer" channel that had the DM songs on it: It was a small and rather dead channel anyhow, so not the end of the world to lose it
Channel 2 - One I made many years ago - made 1 video - never touched it after that. I could care less that I lost it.
Channel 3 - Partnered channel bringing in a little bit of money, but not so important. Unfortunate to lose since it was partnered, but not the end of the world.
Channel 4 - This was my LIFE! My daily job! All of the work I have done in the past half year has gone to this channel. It had almost 50K subscribers and it the statistics looked promising. It was literally paying my rent. Losing this channel has now changed my life as my income will suddenly stop. It's like getting fired from your daily work!

So why did it happen? And can I get my channels back?
The reason YouTube gave me for all 4 channels was "spam, deceptive practices and scams policy".

Since all 4 channels are completely unrelated, it's hard to know the actual reason. Because I have never done any of those things. I've always tried to follow YouTube rules. In fact my first YouTube channel was founded in 2006 and this is the first time I've ever had an issue!

With the Andrea Fryer channel I see only 4 possibilities:
1. When I got the invitation for partnership, they checked my channel and the person was uneducated with AI stuff, perhaps thought I was presenting the DM songs as if they were from the actual band (deceptive practices?)
2. There was a lot of hate in the comments from devout Depeche Mode fans. Could it be that many of these haters reported the video? The views got up to 102K views, so imagine if even 1K reported the video?
3. Perhaps the DM lawyers contacted YouTube and asked for the removal?
4. Maybe this has nothing at all to do with DM? Since this seems to be a suspension of my entire account in YouTube (and all it's related channels), maybe there was something bad in one of the other channels, and the Andrea Fryer channel was merely removed alongside the others as collateral damage.

I sent in appeals, but they were rejected. Today I chatted with support (so an actual human being) and this person sent in a second appeal on my behalf. I tried to ask why this happened, but she said she would respond later with an email. All seems very weird and confusing!

What's next?
I honestly don't know. I feel devastated, lost, bewildered, confused. It breaks my heart not being able to share the DM AI videos. I worked on them quite a bit and they were like little works of art - at least to me. I guess I could upload them to my personal website, but I wonder if that's a risk too. What's really sad is that I was working on the 5th DM song and it was going to be a good one! Also Udio just came out with new tools that fixed many of the issues I was having with the software before. (the glitch issue was fixed, also there are new timestamp tools for controlling how to extend the songs) So I would have been able to make even better songs. For understandable reasons, I now have no motivation to continue if I can't share my work.

Anyhow, sorry for the very long rant, but now you know what happened. If anyone has any questions about the DM songs, let me know!

I would also be curious to know if anyone else here tried making DM songs in Udio and whether you were successful!

Hi Andrea



But wow, what a nasty move from youtube Thanks for sharing some more insights and good luck with your channels, hope you will get them back

 

[KatsPurr]

Hi Andrea :Hello:

But wow, what a nasty move from youtube Thanks for sharing some more insights and good luck with your channels, hope you will get them back :soup:

Thank you for the welcome!
Yeah, it was not just one punch, two punches, three punches - but a complete knock out! I'm still laying on the ground hehe!
I did get an email just now from YouTube saying that they will try and do an internal appeal for the Andrea Fryer channel to restore it. Let's keep our fingers crossed that the appeal goes through this time!

In other news, I sent a message to the company that hosts my website and asked them if it's ok to upload the videos to their server. (I also asked them what is the worse case scenario if DM lawyers contact them).
If they tell me the videos are fine, I will put them on my website and let you guys know where you can find them so we can restore this thread at least somewhat. (although I do realize that half of the fun was also seeing how people reacted in the YouTube comments)

 

[Randulph]

Hi Andrea,

thanks a lot for what you've been doing. Especially by being so transparent about it, you have quite obviously given many people a lot to think about. I'm not only talking about legal issues, but also about creative and philosophical questions.
I'm sure you didn't do anything wrong by provoking these questions the way you did and wish you all the best of luck for solving your immediate problems concerning your work and income.

Cheers, Randulph

 

[KatsPurr]

Hi Andrea,

thanks a lot for what you've been doing. Especially by being so transparent about it, you have quite obviously given many people a lot to think about. I'm not only talking about legal issues, but also about creative and philosophical questions.
I'm sure you didn't do anything wrong by provoking these questions the way you did and wish you all the best of luck for solving your immediate problems concerning your work and income.

Cheers, Randulph

Thank you for the kind words Randulph!
It will be interesting to see what the future holds with this technology and how people's attitudes have changed in a year's time. I heard from former colleagues in the game industry that opinions are so strong "for AI" or "against AI" that different teams have been built around common thinking and attitudes. It makes me wonder how it is in the music industry for musicians who work closely with others, and whether there are similar conflicts.

 

[micromoog]

Eine Milliardenindustrie kämpft gerade um ihr Leben.

Da partizipieren im Gro aktuell eh nur noch ein paar Hansel:innen

 

[Laurin]

Friendly greetings everyone!

I'm the crazy lady who made the AI Depeche mode songs you guys have been talking about in this thread. I've been following your conversation since the very beginning and originally found it because YouTube shows which external sites link to your videos.

I didn't register to the forum until today however (thank you again Moog for your help!) because I saw some of you wondering what the heck happened to the channel. So I thought I'd come in and tell you the whole story! I don't know any German, but I use the Google translate extension in Chrome. So feel free to continue discussing in German as I'll be able to understand (most of) it.

In any case, it's been fascinating to read what you guys have been discussing - also the speculation about the technical side of how AI works. For the record, this thread has been the most interesting and well balanced discussion out of all of the external links I discovered and this is the only one I felt any motivation to respond to.

1. If you're here for the technical discussion and have no interest in reading my long rant of what happened to my channel, feel free to skip the rest of this message and jump straight to asking me questions if you have any about the process of making the songs in Udio, or whatever else you might want to know.
2. If you're curious about what happened to the channel and why it was removed. Read on.

So, what happened to the channel?
As you have noticed, it has been removed. Let's go to April the 25th:

Thanks to the wild success of the first DM song (and I guess some of you might have seen the Rolling Stone article as well), I was able to fulfill the requirements to apply for partnership in YouTube. I was super happy and excited of course and immediately sent in the application. Then, only a couple of hours later I got emails from YouTube telling me that not only has THAT channel been removed, but also 3 others!



Of course I knew that there might be risks when I started posting the DM songs. Posting AI content is still so new, so it's still unclear where the boundaries are. I did try and make it extremely clear however, that it was AI and also did the "Altered content" disclosure in the video (which is a new thing YouTube introduced recently which requires YouTubers to disclose if something is AI generated). Point being: I tried to make it VERY clear it's AI and doesn't represent DM. The worst I was expecting is maybe the video getting taken down, or a copyright strike or a warning. But I never expected to lose my entire channel and lose 3 more channels in addition - all at the same time!

Channel 1 - This "Andrea Fryer" channel that had the DM songs on it: It was a small and rather dead channel anyhow, so not the end of the world to lose it
Channel 2 - One I made many years ago - made 1 video - never touched it after that. I could care less that I lost it.
Channel 3 - Partnered channel bringing in a little bit of money, but not so important. Unfortunate to lose since it was partnered, but not the end of the world.
Channel 4 - This was my LIFE! My daily job! All of the work I have done in the past half year has gone to this channel. It had almost 50K subscribers and it the statistics looked promising. It was literally paying my rent. Losing this channel has now changed my life as my income will suddenly stop. It's like getting fired from your daily work!

So why did it happen? And can I get my channels back?
The reason YouTube gave me for all 4 channels was "spam, deceptive practices and scams policy".

Since all 4 channels are completely unrelated, it's hard to know the actual reason. Because I have never done any of those things. I've always tried to follow YouTube rules. In fact my first YouTube channel was founded in 2006 and this is the first time I've ever had an issue!

With the Andrea Fryer channel I see only 4 possibilities:
1. When I got the invitation for partnership, they checked my channel and the person was uneducated with AI stuff, perhaps thought I was presenting the DM songs as if they were from the actual band (deceptive practices?)
2. There was a lot of hate in the comments from devout Depeche Mode fans. Could it be that many of these haters reported the video? The views got up to 102K views, so imagine if even 1K reported the video?
3. Perhaps the DM lawyers contacted YouTube and asked for the removal?
4. Maybe this has nothing at all to do with DM? Since this seems to be a suspension of my entire account in YouTube (and all it's related channels), maybe there was something bad in one of the other channels, and the Andrea Fryer channel was merely removed alongside the others as collateral damage.

I sent in appeals, but they were rejected. Today I chatted with support (so an actual human being) and this person sent in a second appeal on my behalf. I tried to ask why this happened, but she said she would respond later with an email. All seems very weird and confusing!

What's next?
I honestly don't know. I feel devastated, lost, bewildered, confused. It breaks my heart not being able to share the DM AI videos. I worked on them quite a bit and they were like little works of art - at least to me. I guess I could upload them to my personal website, but I wonder if that's a risk too. What's really sad is that I was working on the 5th DM song and it was going to be a good one! Also Udio just came out with new tools that fixed many of the issues I was having with the software before. (the glitch issue was fixed, also there are new timestamp tools for controlling how to extend the songs) So I would have been able to make even better songs. For understandable reasons, I now have no motivation to continue if I can't share my work.

Anyhow, sorry for the very long rant, but now you know what happened. If anyone has any questions about the DM songs, let me know!

I would also be curious to know if anyone else here tried making DM songs in Udio and whether you were successful!

Hallo Andrea,
ich nehme mal dein Angebot an und antworte in deutsch, weil das dann doch einfacher ist, und danke dafür, dass du dich selbst hier in die Sache einbringst und den Sachverhalt aus deiner Sicht schilderst. Meine Meinung dazu ist folgende:

Wenn es sich so verhält wie du geschildert hast, hast du aus rechtlicher Sicht wohl nichts falsch gemacht, und ist die Reaktion von YT inkonsistent zu den eigenen Regeln und völlig überzogen. Ich vermute mal, dass die Ursache der Reaktion sowohl die vielen 'hater' waren (die aus Empörung vielleicht den Meldebutton gedrückt haben), aber auch Anwälte mit sehr konkreten Drohungen. Das muss nicht unbedingt von DM sein, das kann auch seitens der Musikindustrie gekommen sein. Man hätte seitens YT das Video offline stellen können, bzw. falls es mehr davon auf dem Kanal gab (hat es das ?) ggf. dann auch den Kanal - aber nicht auch deine anderen Kanäle. Wenn Einkommen bei dir davon abhängt, und YT bei der derzeitigen Haltung bleibt, würde ich mir überlegen, ebenfalls einen Anwalt einzuschalten.


Anders sehe ich die moralische Seite. 'Rechtlich' heißt nicht immer 'richtig'. KI-Systeme können das, was sie tun, nur aufgrund des meist sehr umfangreichen antrainierten Materials leisten - in dem Fall wird das die Musik der Musiker sein, die du dann zusammen mit der KI zu imitieren versuchst. In den seltensten Fällen wird man die Künstler, deren Material hier zum antrainieren verwendet, vorher gefragt haben - wenn überhaupt. Und da liegt der Haken an der Sache: Ohne das Material dieser vielen Musiker wäre die KI dumm wie Bohnenstroh und könnte das überhaupt nicht leisten.

Das, was du mit Hilfe der KI erzeugst, bzw. von ihr erzeugen lässt, ist ja nicht deine eigene Arbeit, sondern du verwendest ein sehr mächtiges Tool, was im Grunde die Arbeit anderer Künstler auswertet, analysiert, und nach deinen Vorgaben daraus etwas 'Neues' generiert, was sich so anhört als hätte DM ein neues Stück herausgebracht.

Ich halte das für sehr zweifelhaft, weil es die Arbeit von Künstlern entwertet. Warum soll man noch deren Musik kaufen, wenn uns die KI etwas generieren kann, was sich fast genauso anhört? Man kann jetzt natürlich argumentieren, das ist halt so, der Zug der Zeit usw., und es sei eh nicht aufzuhalten. Wie wir wirklich damit in Zukunft umgehen, wird sich aber noch entscheiden. Staaten werden dazu Gesetze erlassen, die KI-Hersteller wollen natürlich auch irgendwann Geld sehen, und auch Youtube & Co werden sich neu orientieren müssen. Vielleicht ist dein Fall auch ein Symptom dafür, dass das gerade bei YT stattfindet. Spotify z.B. positioniert sich da schon deutlich kritischer.

So faszinierend es sein mag, damit herum zu experimentieren, würde ich auf jeden Fall die Ergebnisse davon nirgendwo hochladen und weiter verbreiten - einfach weil es zweifelhaft ist, und gegenüber den eigentlichen Musikern nicht fair.

 

[Jörg]

Es würde mich nicht wundern, wenn der Grund tatsächlich "Fans" waren, die das Video "gemeldet" haben.
Auch wenn ich Laurin im Großen und Ganzen zustimme, finde ich es gut, dass das Ding veröffentlich wurde. Alleine schon, um eine Diskussion darüber anzustoßen, was sowieso kommt. Das funktioniert natürlich am besten mit einer so bekannten und geliebten Band wie Depeche Mode.

Und falls es jemand verpasst hat....

 

[KatsPurr]

If it is as you described, you have done nothing wrong from a legal point of view, and YT's reaction is inconsistent with its own rules and completely excessive. I suspect that the cause of the reaction was both the many 'haters' (who perhaps pressed the report button out of outrage), but also lawyers with very specific threats. This doesn't necessarily have to have come from DM, it could also have come from the music industry. YT could have taken the video offline, or if there were more of them on the channel (did it?), then perhaps the channel too - but not your other channels. If your income depends on it, and YT sticks to its current stance, I would consider getting a lawyer involved as well.

Heya Laurin and thank you for sharing your thoughts. They definitely made me stop and ponder. We still don't know whether this happened because of the DM videos. Since my post yesterday, I actually got a new email from this support person, and it turns out that actually one of my OTHER channels had multiple violations and she said they will not be returning that channel under any circumstances. (I still don't know what I did wrong with that channel though! They keep giving me this "spam, deceptive practices and scams policy" reason but I've never done any of those things!

Anyhow, as for the Andrea Fryer (that had the DM songs) and my "work" channel, she has sent an internal appeal as she feels there's nothing wrong with them. So I'm on pins and needles waiting to hear the results.

This indicates to me, that the actual reason this all happened was the channel that had multiple violations, and not because of the DM videos. I did try to ask her whether the DM stuff was mass reported or whether DM lawyers had asked for them to be removed, but she hasn't answered those questions. (yet)

I see the moral side differently. 'Legal' does not always mean 'right'. AI systems can only do what they do because of the usually very extensive material they have been trained to - in this case, that will be the music of the musicians that you then try to imitate together with the AI. In very rare cases, the artists whose material is used for training will have been asked beforehand - if at all. And that's the catch: without the material from these many musicians, the AI would be as dumb as a post and would not be able to do it at all.

You are absolutely right about this. That just because I could technically and legally do something, it doesn't mean that I should or that it is morally correct.

My take on the moral side of things is complicated and I have a lot of internal conflicts on how I feel about this. As a visual artist, the same can be said for AI art. I guess my overall feel however, is that I see my videos as comparable to "fan art" or "cover bands".
Imagine the countless pieces of fan art or fan videos that have been created based on World of Warcraft. Where the creator has tried to copy and emulate the game's style as closely as they could. And yet very few see these as being morally wrong.
What about Depeche Mode cover bands which try and dress, sing, sound and play as closely to DM as they possibly can. Even playing live gigs. Some bands not only doing covers, but probably even making their own "DM sounding songs". Do we see these bands as being morally bad, or just as harmless super-fans?

Where I do feel some guilt or moral issues, is how Udio is able to reproduce Gahan's voice so closely. This is something I feel software like Udio should not be able to do and needs to fix. Of course, for me to take the action to intentionally try and make use of this "flaw" (while it still works) is completely "on me" and I fully acknowledge that I could have chosen a different path. Once you start playing around in Udio and discover what it can do, it's hard to resist the temptation.

I think that's very dubious because it devalues the work of artists. Why should we still buy their music when AI can generate something that sounds almost exactly the same?

Laurin I'd be curious to know how you feel about fan art or cover bands that produce basically the same outcome as the original (with much more effort of course)? Do you see any issues with those?

Why would we still buy their music? But do "AI-songs/cover bands" actually steal anything away from the original musician? While fake stuff might have provided some "temporary amusement", I'm pretty sure that if DM announced a new album, fans would push the fake stuff aside and rush to listen to/buy to the real thing just as hungrily. Same goes for live gigs. I highly doubt that just because cover bands (that look and sound exactly like DM) have live gigs that it has any impact on whether fans rush to go to DM concerts just as much as before. Etc etc.

PS: I just want to also make it very clear that when talking about fan artists or cover bands and when pooling them together with AI generated stuff, I am in no way underestimating the years, the dedication and raw talent it requires to get to such a result! I am only talking about the end result itself: Does the end result devalue the original artist? (regardless of how it was made) I assume this is obvious, but just thought I should add that in!

 

[goorooj]

I'd be curious to know how you feel about fan art or cover bands that produce basically the same outcome as the original (with much more effort of course)? Do you see any issues with those?

Hi Andrea.

I think the difference is that if you cover the songs properly, the revenue still goes to the original creators ( the artist, songwriter ), while with this AI approach they get nothing from it.
And... with a cover, you dont change the songs.

Now imagine, you are, as a creator, making money with a very special channel ( or channels ). you have a lot of followers, your income depends on it. You have a very distinct style.
Now somebody is using AI for exactly imitating you and putting stuff online. Using your Image and Voice to generate Videos that look like you have made them, but with a content that you never would endorse.
And then imagine everybody thinks that is funny and starts making videos that look like you have made them, flooding the web with it.... but with content that you would never approve, hate, foolishness....
Something, you would not say that way or you would not feel that way.

With this AI approach, you could put all kinds of lyrics "in their mouths"....
Imagine Dave Gahan hearing himself singing about something he deeply disapproves....

 

[Crossinger]

@goorooj But Pandora’s Box is already open. Even if the major online sites implement restrictions to prevent any „soundalikes“, the ai models are freely available for download, and their quality and usability currently improves in steps of weeks - not months.

If you fear that the internet is flooded with imitations - it will happen, and question is no longer „if“ but „when“.

 

[Moogulator]

The problem here is, that it is sort of precedent case. Andrea might not flood up her channel with Depeche AI covers but one song.
since AI is a new thing and may not die soon - it should be ok to report and tell - in this case it was about creating something with AI - the scandal here is more than one.

AI has become normal over night and yt did kill or demonetize or warns people that THEIR ALGORITHM thinks that might be some existing song.
in fact there are hundreds of nameless synth guys with no face covering Depeche Mode and other artists just because it works.
it is not so hard to to once you know it. but a more craftmanship "made by hand" thing maybe.

it is sort of a double standard to let videos go off the grid..
YT is not there to "judge" - that should be done by the people AFTER they discussed AI and its capabilities and dangers before just killing accounts of messengers who just tell about it. I guess there could have been more of these - since you can not contact them it is even harder since you can not just mail someone.
btw same with facebook - I'd really like to email a real person but I always get some sort of AI answer and that is almost 50 shades of no but the same reason.

interesting, that these AIs reply and false detections are not evil enough?
I was hit by that more than once for a demo or something - but surely never for reposting a song - sometimes it was just a sound that yt couldn't recognise correctly.
but of course all of this should happen in public and not machined out here and there - I am totally pro machines. but that's very close or even worse than "no service" I doubt that google has real people checking videos for the actual content. not even a call & watch center "in china".

so…
hands up for the next round.

service as a service.

 

[goorooj]

The problem here is, that it is sort of precedent case. Andrea might not flood up her channel with Depeche AI covers but one song.
since AI is a new thing and may not die soon - it should be ok to report and tell - in this case it was about creating something with AI - the scandal here is more than one.

AI has become normal over night and yt did kill or demonetize or warns people that THEIR ALGORITHM thinks that might be some existing song.
in fact there are hundreds of nameless synth guys with no face covering Depeche Mode and other artists just because it works.
it is not so hard to to once you know it. but a more craftmanship "made by hand" thing maybe.

it is sort of a double standard to let videos go off the grid..
YT is not there to "judge" - that should be done by the people AFTER they discussed AI and its capabilities and dangers before just killing accounts of messengers who just tell about it. I guess there could have been more of these - since you can not contact them it is even harder since you can not just mail someone.
btw same with facebook - I'd really like to email a real person but I always get some sort of AI answer and that is almost 50 shades of no but the same reason.

interesting, that these AIs reply and false detections are not evil enough?
I was hit by that more than once for a demo or something - but surely never for reposting a song - sometimes it was just a sound that yt couldn't recognise correctly.
but of course all of this should happen in public and not machined out here and there - I am totally pro machines. but that's very close or even worse than "no service" I doubt that google has real people checking videos for the actual content. not even a call & watch center "in china".

so…
hands up for the next round.

service as a service.

You are absolutely right, and censoring or banning stuff never worked . I am at loss for a solution here, just stating facts and possible caveats. It is there now, and making New Songs from your favourite Band is still a better application of AI than other things that can ( and will ) be done with it.

I found Andreas Video very enlightening and down to the Point, and i hope it will be back online.