SONY announced it has the tech that can identify the original music in AI generated songs by percentages...“30% of the music used is by the Beatles and 10% is by Queen.” Should artists begin the celebration? It may be too late!

The Internet is being divided up by the record labels into 'walled gardens,' charging tech companies to slip into the gardens and train AI on the music. It may be too late.

A nonprofit company you probably haven't heard of, Common Crawl, has been silently crawling and archiving the Internet for decades, and allows free access to the data. It is now the source of 80% of the data used to train AI, there wouldn't be a ChatGPT without it. I.E., everything on the Internet has already been gobbled up by AI. Can you name a song that hasn't been on the internet? Is walling off their existing IP and charging for AI access to the data, that AI probably already has, a way to provide legal cover for the AI tech companies? Does this mean there will be less 'free' Internet available after it is carved up by big corps?

And if you're not signed to a label, you're music is outside the walls and is open game for AI!

Sources: https://snydersmusicbiznews.blogspot.com/2026/02/carving-up-and-raising-walls-on-web.html

A historical dive into the demise of live local music.

(Note: This is not an endorsement of drinking)

Looking back to the glory days when band's were prolific and there were plenty of venues to play in, packed with fanatical music lovers. Small local venues were a proving ground for emerging artists, where they could build a following from high school age, and expand the boundaries of music performance. Label A&R reps prowled local clubs looking to sign the next big band. Most live local acts now mostly consist of singles or duos starting and ending early for early-to-bed boomers, tribute cover bands playing for those same boomers, and lounge troubadours playing for non-locals.

There are three primary reasons that the venue habitats, and thus bands to play in them, have all but disappeared:

- The National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984

- Now six Performing Rights Organizations demanding payment by local venues

- Covid Epidemic

As Mary Hopkins sang: Those were the days, my friend We thought they'd never end We'd sing and dance forever and a day

I ask anti-AI musicians if they had ever had actually checked out what it's capable of, most say no.

So I decided to demonstrate how over 70+ million Alexa subscribers can now ask Alexa to write a song, by just talking to an Alexa enabled speaker. You'll hear the conversation between me and Alexa as we discussed creating a Valentine song for my cat, Jonesy. Listen to the song. Do you think it's AI slop? Personally, I think it's scary good. (It also created the artwork).

When Amazon announced the new Alexa +, it's integration with Suno was barely featured, but now that it's open to any Prime member, they are beginning to publicize it. “Using Alexa’s integration with Suno, you can turn simple, creative requests into complete songs,” “Looking to delight your partner with a personalized song for their birthday based on their love of cats, or surprise your kid by creating a rap using their favorite cartoon characters? Alexa+ has you covered.”

Instead of streaming typical songs played at weddings, now a couple can ask Alexa to create original love songs for each other. It will be interesting to see Suno membership grow as Alexa points users to Suno to download or see the lyrics of the song.

I do this not to promote AI music. There is definite copyright infringement. But I encourage musicians to at least check out what somebody, with no musical abilities, can instantly create. Tik Tok is next. Ignore this at your own peril!

Sources: https://snydersmusicbiznews.blogspot....