I am determined not to accept this agreement. These AI companies paid me only once, they knocked on the door at Pond5, $70, and then they didn’t need me anymore. So their game is clear. And Envato should understand this too.
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Dear Envato Team,
I’m a music author on Envato, creating music for media since 2016.
Recently, Envato sent an email to all music authors, announcing the launch of a program for training generative AI and inviting authors to provide their portfolios for AI training. However, Envato doesn’t provide any details on what amounts will be paid to authors, how many times or if there will be ongoing royalties for works created by AI based, for example, on my tracks.
In a nutshell, Envato says, “Give us your portfolios, which have been created over many years of hard work, and in return, we might pay you something. But we don’t know how much, or we know but won’t tell you. But please agree!” At the same time, there are known cases where another audiostocks did something similar, and the authors who agreed to provide their works received paltry sums. This even appears to diminish the value of authors’ work, as we all understand where this is going: the company will pay a few dollars to authors, train the AI on their works, after which the authors will no longer be needed, and incomes will fall even more or disappear entirely. Why should authors help to destroy themselves without decent compensation?
Furthermore, how an author can agree or disagree with Envato’s proposal if the following points are kept secret:
- Pricing and compensation for authors, even approximate possible amounts
- Copyright issues
- Potential copyright problems for authors and in the YouTube ContentID system
- The future role of authors after the AI is trained, added to the website, and starts generating music
- Envato’s commitment to the authenticity and diversity of the author community, which has always been a declared core value of the company. The goal of supporting independent authors in sharing their work with the world and receiving respect and financial rewards from clients must be maintained. Where is it all in your offer?
- Future plans for Envato, especially after becoming part of Shutterstock, and the implications for us as authors. It is crucial for us to receive clear communication from the company’s representatives on this matter.
Until authors are provided with a clear understanding and well-defined legal and financial conditions from Envato, I refuse to provide my music for the purposes stated in the company’s letter and prohibit the transfer of it to third parties for AI training without agreement. If the company provides detailed explanations of the terms for authors and future perspectives, I may reconsider my decision later.
I would also like to note that the above is shared by most representatives of the Ukrainian author community, of which I am one of the administrators. Please consider this a collective inquiry from our community as well.
We hope Envato will address our questions with respect and understanding and provide comprehensive answers.
Wishing everyone success and prosperity during these challenging times.
Best regards,
Ivan Luzan
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Dear Envato Team,
As a music author on Envato since 2014, I have concerns regarding the recent email about providing portfolios for generative AI training. The lack of details on compensation, royalties, and copyright issues is troubling.
Envato’s proposal seems vague and potentially exploitative. There are known instances where similar initiatives resulted in minimal payouts to authors, undermining the value of their work. This raises concerns about the future role of authors and their earnings once AI-generated music becomes prevalent.
Key points requiring clarification include:
- Compensation details for authors.
- Copyright and potential YouTube ContentID issues.
- Future role of authors post-AI training.
- Envato’s commitment to supporting independent authors.
Until clear and fair terms are provided, I refuse to participate in this program and prohibit the use of my music for AI training. I share many in the Ukrainian author community, of which I am a part.
We seek detailed explanations and hope for respectful and transparent communication from Envato.
Best regards,
Alex_MakeMusic (Oleksandr Savochka)
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Hello Envato Team,
I have questions about the last email about Generative AI services. Because what I read it’s unclear. The title is about AI generative services, the whole text about the deal and details are hidden and you have to choose to accept or decline. Looks like a scam
As you may know, we use ContentID services to protect our music. Also, we use publishers and P.R.O.
Soooo, here is some questions:
- If someone generates a music item that is very similar to my music item and decides to upload it on streaming services, P.R.O., or publishers, I will get a claim or strike. How can I protect my music tracks from this? What if this generated music will be uploaded to Envato Market and re-generated more and more times?
- If it will happen what is the future of the existing authors?
- I need some “numbers” to understand my profit and how it can affect my future profit. How can I monitor it?
By the way, I also have a question for authors of photos and pictures, who decide to share their items with AI services. Was it worth it? How does it affect your sales?
I need answers to understand my next step. As for now, I decline your proposal
Best,
Vadym
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Dear Envato Team!
I’m very confused with your suggestion to sign deal without any details from you. To my opinion any deal must contain clear details to understand what authors that will sign it can get from it.
First of all I think that you need to separate any third-party deals and AI. I think that many authors can think to give permission for sell music at the another services, but don’t want to give there music for AI.
There are also important poitns:
1.What earnings this deal will give to author?
2.What copyright issues can be if we will give our music? Especially for Youtube Content ID
3. Ability to include separate items for this deal (something like it released for Envato Elements). I think that many authors wants to have ability to moderate their music - which items they want to accept or not accept to this deal.
4. Terms of deal. I think that the deal that will not have option to leave it if you don’t like results of this deal is also important.
5. It’s better to do “opt in” button for this deal, because some authors may not see email, and will not press “opt out”. It’s looks like that you want to add music for this deal without permission from them. It’s not right, I think.
6. If author will give permission for using music for AI training - what profit can be? Will he get royalties from music, that will generated after this training?
Please, separate any third-party deals and AI deal!
For reasons that I tell about, I will not accept this deal, beafore Envato Team will not give clear answers for all questions and clear all details for this deal. And I believe that 99% authors will do the same!
Kind regards,
LuckyBlackCat
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I know you’re only the messenger, Ben.
But jeez…
Spin much?
What a cynical and twisted interpretation of what’s actually going on here.
Apparently the higher-ups think we’re all a bunch of naive idiots.
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May be I am not in line with others, and though I expressed some concerns already, I believe for me it is better to opt-in. AI hysteria will be calm down at some point in future and I believe quality of such generations are way below professionally accepted level. This is kinda philosophical problem. High Tech companies raised this hype around AI and there’s huge amount of investments being involved both in hardware and software, as well as finding legal solution for data training. And though some examples of generative music sounds at least interesting, some are just horrible. Lack of regulation is also a problem, all landscape looks like Wild West during Gold rush. I hope Envato will be carefully choose every step in this future deals, not devaluing our content and finding good deals for us. As for already expressed concerns, I agree that we need more clarity - especially about third party deals. We need to know expected share for us. I know it’s hard to expect exact numbers before any deals signed, but I believe Envato clearly expect amount of their share. So count me in. We walked together more than 12 years. It is 1/4 part of my life on this planet. Just be careful during negotiating with AI startups. As not so good example - I had already contacted on other market, and this deal suggested 36$ per track. Way below what @SteelSound expected. Personally, I don’t believe anyone will pay 1000$ per track. Considering how much earnings this startups would be generate for them, I think our music deserve more than 36$. I hope all this things will be sorted out. I am optimistic about our future. Real human craftsmanship is hard to beat. And being trained as Data Scientist, current AI actually is not THAT AI that every data scientist expected to see. We are 2-5 years away from true revolution. And time when interest to current AI toys will be calm down is not that far away. AI winter is almost here. We need way more time to help this technology mature. And only after many iterations this technology will return as useful tools for benefits of all.
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I think today’s situation is more like “we have no already signed deals, but we want to know what we can offer for licensing from our side”. I don’t think Envato trying to cheating us, it’s more like Golden Rush and they need to react as fast as possible. I believe, Envato already received proposals, and to be honest, they’re giving us options. Though I still believe better to split this options in to two parts - third party deals and generative AI deals. First part of this equation at least looks more predictable and do not contradict with inner ethics of many of us. Second part is really controversial area, and as we see here, it is very very emotional.
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Just opted out. Not worth the risk at all. Also huge red flag that authors cannot opt out after July 29.
Remember you are not only dealing with Envato, but Shutterstock. Same company that started AI training on the Pond5 music catalogue without any consent at all. Some peanut payments arrived 6 month later marked only “dataset earnings” with no additional info.
If you care about your own music catalogue you want as much control as possible going forward that’s for sure.
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I would be interested in seeing separation between Gen AI and licensing too.
I could imagine tracks being offered in other programs,. something like Canva for example. Like a sub licensing deal.
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Ok, reading all comments above there’s no much to add in terms of questions, shades, grey-areas and serious concerns about these new plans. Many of us are probably interested in knowing what these “third-party revenue streams” are but it’s just impossible to jump in to an absolute void, which is where things are right now.
Who would accept a job without knowing the terms and salary?
Who would rent a house upfront if the landlord tells you he can’t provide you with “details” (THE DETAILS!?!?!?!) of the price, how many rooms it has or where it’s located?
All of the above, and this IS clear and everywhere on the article, IN PERPETUITY.
Personally, I’m not on the “refuse-everything” side, but right now I guess no one in their right mind would opt-in. I actually think we composers, as a collective (I know, it never worked before, hhaha) should opt-out until the concrete terms and fees are made public.
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Due to the legal uncertainties regarding samples and passing them on to third parties, I used the opt-out button.
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@LumenMedia, the $36 per track offer is just an initial low ball offer that has not been set in stone, nor has that deal been made. Copyright Law has not been defined for “GENERATIVE AI MUSIC OUTPUTS”. The law suit against SUNO and UDIO will set a precedent for future “GENERATIVE MUSIC AI OUTPUTS”
It is a fact that these AI outputs are derived from Human Made sound recordings which are copyrighted music files owned and created by “real people”
I have to believe that courts, governments, and well…society as whole will not accept typing “Pop, Synth, Fun, Happy, Guitar, Drums, Upbeat” then clicking CREATE as a fresh human authored copyrightable sound recording!
It’s absurd! There is no performance, composing, arranging, orchestrating, mixing, nor mastering taking place!
So I delpore everyone to opt out of this insanity to first see how the case plays out.
But more importantly…How can you OPT IN to something where:
- Your compensation is not defined
- The legal risk is extremely high due to the “unkowns” of the future outputs
- Now all of the virtual instrument companies (SPLICE, NATIVE INSTRUMENTS, Etc…) are changing their terms to state “You can not use our sounds and samples to Train AI”
- There is no recurring royalty stream for generative AI music. All it does is “learn” from your music ideas and then it outputs similar sounding music, but you no longer own that property you helped create.
- The clear goal of Generative AI music is to eliminate copyrights entirely, eliminate recurring royalties to humans, and basically just do one of the largest transfers of human creativity (The entire history of recorded music) into a “soul less” faceless computer server that recreates what humans have done before in one click. Mega Cap Tech is trying to do this without compensating human creators. (Microsoft, Meta, Nvidia, Google, Open AI, and these types of companies are behind this folks)
How could you possibly agree to such a proposal? There is no offer other than “Just trust us…we’ll try to make some deals, and we’ll pay you whatever we deicde to pay you”…Now that is insane!
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I Would suggest:
- Opt-in option (standard opt-out for non responsive authors due to legal problems regarding samples) for GenAI deals.
- Opt in/ out option for other licensing/ sub licensing deals.
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I also initially thought separating the distribution and “licensing” into two separate agreements would provide some semblance of fairness and logic to this situation.
However, upon further reflection, I’m beginning to think that the only result would be two separate bags of 
.
Entering into ANY sort of vague, blind, detail-less agreement, whether to distribute OR license, is to functionally forfeit our assets to Envato.
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Easiest decision ever to opt out. Isn’t this the same “deal” we were offered a while ago? Question: Envato/Shutterstock needs to know how many authors are opting in. They need more details to make a deal but expect the authors to sign an agreement without any info? There may be money in this for Envato, but I doubt authors will see more than pennies and false cid-claims.
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From discussions I have had with folks in the business I have learned this:
- AI Music companies have a strong interest in stock music/ production music because of how well it is organized. Not only did we all prepare music files, but we titled them, described them, and keyworded them…All that data is EXTREMELY CONVENIENT AND USEFUL to AI Companies needing to learn from and execute generative AI Music outputs.
- These AI Companies investing into this new technology do not want to deal with getting permission from 100,000 different music producers. It’s much more convenient for Google to court Envato and say “Yo, we want your data, all of it, but we can not wait for you to get 20,000 music producers to sign a separate one by one permissions contract. We want to make your company one “bulk all in” offer for the 1,000,000 sound recordings and the data associated with each”. This is the real deal folks. Google, Microsoft, Apple Meta (for example) do not have time to get direct permission from 500,000 different music producers all over the world. They want a fast and easy “Bulk deal”…for x amount of dollars you give us a 200,000 track dataset to “learn from/ Train” our AI model.
So Envato needs to be able to then say “Hey Google, MSFT, META, APPL…We have 200,000 files for you to ingest…” or whatever it may end up being.
The question for all of us is this: Why make it easy for Mega Cap Tech to just devour our property? What’s in it for you? So far, from what I have seen…the answer is absolutely nothing! There is nothing in it for you.
Are you going to be happy with $1 per track to Train AI Music Models?
Mega Cap Tech is coming in for the kill, they want all the music property out there, and for nothing! So this is why YOU need to set a price on your tracks. They want your property, to become their property, so What is your sale price?
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Also I’ve mentioned it a couple of times already. My PRO simply doesn’t allow going into GenAi. I think this counts currently for most PROs and its members.
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And everyone needs to realize that PRO “performance royalties” is the last recurring revenue stream we have left. Micro Stock licensing is slowly fading away. It may come back if the court case orders UDIO and SUNO to shut down and rules that generative AI music is illegal.
NAPSTER music file sharing service was ordered shut down. They literally went bankrupt. In 1999, They stole everyone’s music files, and enabled copying and file sharing, free downloading of mp3s etc…, for free.
There is hope, but everyone needs to just be patient and wait and see what governments and courts decide.
Envato clearly does not want to wait around as they see a very short term opportunity to profit from these dataset deals. Envato thinks that all of the assets on their platform is their property. When you opt into the new deal, you essentially are making your property THEIR property to sell and license at any price they set with the AI devil. You do not have a seat at the table to negotiate your price if you opt in today. Nor can you change your mind and opt out after July 29.
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I opted out.
Composers need to be very careful as we navigate this generative AI inflection point in our industry, and thoroughly consider how the consequences of our choices will affect the ability to protect our intellectual property in the future. I appreciate that Envato is sensitive to this issue and is giving us each the choice to participate or not. This is an easy choice for me.
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