We’ve written a lot about China-based music streaming company Tencent Music Entertainment’s AI-related efforts.
In May, for example, we told you about the company’s artificial intelligence technology that it claimed could “predict the next hit song.”
In July, we reported on KUGOU AIK, the AI singing technology of Kugou Music, a subsidiary of Tencent Music, which is claimed to be the world’s first multi-lingual AI singing technology.
Recently, the company revealed in its first environmental, social and governance report that it is “strategically deploying advanced AI tools” to combat copyright infringement on its platform amid the rise of AI-generated music .
TME operations QQ Music, cool dog, and Those ones Platforms and Karaoke Apps We sing. it has 117 million According to the company’s second-quarter report released on August 13, the number of paying users of its online music platform as of the end of June.
In a section of the ESG report devoted to intellectual property rights, TME addressed the rise of artificial intelligence, noting that “as AI technology advances rapidly,” the company has “strengthened” its “intellectual property protection standards” in response to the alleged “Intellectual Property Rights Protection Standards.”
“We believe that artificial intelligence should be a support tool for musicians to create original works, not a substitute.”
Tencent Music Entertainment
TME said: “We believe that artificial intelligence should be a supporting tool for musicians to create original works, rather than a substitute. We conduct compliance assessments and continuous monitoring of artificial intelligence products and operations to ensure that artificial intelligence-generated music content is properly licensed , musicians’ creative works are fully protected.
Additionally, TME stated in its ESG report that its goal is to “minimize copyright infringement by: Strategically deploy advanced AI tools Automatically identify and compare suspected infringing content.”
In April this year, TME disclosed in its annual report to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that the company was facing 695 Copyright infringement litigation through the end of 2023.
“As of December 31, 2023, there were 695 pending lawsuits related to alleged copyright infringements on our platform against us or our affiliates, with damages sought totaling approximately RMB 281.3 million ($39.6 million),” the annual report stated.
“this [TME] The Group is not currently a party to any such legal or administrative proceedings and we are not aware of any threats that, in the opinion of our management, these legal or administrative proceedings may have any material and adverse impact on our business, financial position, cash . or operating results.
Data provided by TME shows that many of these lawsuits are quite small, with all 695 cases involving $39.6 million, meaning the average amount was slightly less than $57,000 Damages sought on a case-by-case basis.
In a new ESG report released in late September, TME said the company is “committed to intellectual property protection and continues to play a leadership role in improving China’s music and audio copyright environment.”
The company noted that it “respects and enhances creators’ rights to their intellectual property” on its platform.
TME said it has developed an “intellectual property infringement blacklist” and that any new content entering its blacklist will be “reviewed to determine whether it infringes any copyright.”
The infringing content will then be permanently removed from their platform. TME stated that “these methods effectively reduce the infringement of other parties’ copyrights from the source.”
“We conduct compliance assessments and ongoing monitoring of AI products and operations to ensure that AI-generated music content is properly licensed and musicians’ creative works are fully protected.”
“We conduct compliance assessments and ongoing monitoring of AI products and operations to ensure that AI-generated music content is properly licensed and musicians’ creative works are fully protected.”
Tencent Music Entertainment
TME’s ESG report also reveals statistics about its own intellectual property rights, which are protected by a host of patents and trademarks around the world.
Tencent Music Entertainment has reportedly applied 4,768 Patents as of December 2023.
Among these applications, 2,564 As of the end of last year, it had been authorized by the National Intellectual Property Administration and Overseas Patent Offices.
TME also applied 6,111 As of the end of last year, the trademark 4,295 Which has been registered with the National Intellectual Property Administration of China and overseas
Tencent Music also has it Chapter 694 “Software copyright” registered with the Copyright Protection Center of the People’s Republic of China
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