The music streaming platform Spotify is putting forward an interface by which any artist or composer can input their music in to root out the similitude to other songs in order to circumvent any potential lawsuits that can be filed against them. Here, it becomes pertinent to carry out a patent search online in India before applying for any trademark or patent as non-recognition of such an act could lead to detrimental circumstances.
As patents provide the owners with the prerogative to restrict others from making, getting, using or importing, or selling their invention without prior approval. Hence, it is crucial to conduct a patent search online before initiating the patent process.
Recently, music streaming platform Spotify has applied for a patent named, ‘Plagiarism risk detector and interface’ that would scan inserted music for plagiarism, as per the submissions acquired by the Music Business Worldwide. Such an interface is developed to assist artists in circumventing potential lawsuits against them by identifying similitude in already published songs and music.
This technology needs every song to be scanned with the help of a ‘lead sheet’ which can be described as a form of musical hieroglyphic usual in the music industry. The plagiarism detection of the interface utilizes AI (artificial intelligence) which is ‘instructed on a plurality of pre-existing encoded lead sheets’ as per the patent fillings.
Such a form of the database enables the program to potentially examine a ‘level’ of plagiarism in the song or music in close to real-time. It offers the users a ‘resembling value’ compared to the theme of other lead sheets in the Spotify database. Spotify reckons that such information can enable artists to alter the song’s offending components to circumvent a lawsuit. The program also tells the users if the composition is wholly new and unique such as not detected in any lead sheets logged with Spotify.
To support artists creating music, services such as IBM Watson Beat, Google Magenta’s NSynth Mega, Jukedeck, and Spotify’s own Creator Technology Testing Lab are already creating services. Theoretically, there are fears that artificial intelligence, using algorithms to “cram simplistic earworms down our auditory cavities from now until the end of time,” might eliminate music’s individuality. Artists have pushed back on that definition, though, not since it does not exist, but because it already exists.
Spotify told the publication that not every patent becomes part of its offering but would not say whether it was enforced.
As artificial intelligence is often used to create songs, artificial intelligence to detect copyright infringement in songs could run into a technological arms race.
Others opposed the patent of Spotify as a possible method for the corporation to cover itself rather than musicians, implying that in the case of a lawsuit, the company might use the instrument as a proactive measure to avoid plagiarism, but that artists would possibly find that using the same patented and untested tool would not shield themselves from copyright infringement claims.
The patent filings emphasize a push for an attainable program that any artist or composer could utilize. Plagiarism detection methods that are already in use, ‘needs remarkable expertise and are not befitted for operation by generic artists and composers’, the filling utters, and ‘manual detection of music plagiarism needs substantial efforts, excellent memory, and skill that usually seem impractical’.
On the other hand, this new technology by Spotify ‘is a GUI (graphical user interface) that is far more precise, intuitive as to the portion of work that might be regarded as plagiarized and that offers dynamic visual feedback in considerable real-time’.
A spokesperson of the music streaming platform Spotify has not confirmed or gained the integrity of the patent filing in a statement he has given to The Fader, ‘Spotify has submitted a patent application for several inventions, and we frequently submit new applications. Some of them become part of future products, while others do not. Our goal is to make the best audio experience for all listeners out there, but we do not possess any news to share at this time publicly’.
