Final month, we advised you about Tencent Music Leisure‘s integration with DeepSeek.
DeepSeek is the China-headquartered AI platform that triggered issues throughout the AI sector earlier this 12 months when its chatbot demonstrated that superior AI techniques will be developed with considerably decrease prices and computational assets than beforehand estimated.
The chatbot’s debut led $157 billion-valued OpenAI to suspect that DeepSeek’s mannequin had been educated on its knowledge with out permission, an ironic twist in gentle of the assorted copyright infringement lawsuits OpenAI is going through itself. A kind of lawsuits was filed by German assortment society and licensing physique GEMA in November.
TME CEO Ross Liang defined on the corporate’s earnings name final month that the corporate had made DeepSeek a key a part of its AI music creation instruments.
Now, in its Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) report printed as we speak (April 23), the corporate explains in nice element how its synthetic intelligence capabilities have been expanded throughout the enterprise…
As you will notice in TME’s ESG report, which you’ll be able to learn in full right here, the corporate has made substantial investments in AI throughout sound optimization, audio constancy, suggestions, music creation and extra.
With regard to music creation instruments particularly, TME explains that, “as enthusiasm for user-generated content material continues to develop, extra people are desperate to take part in music creation”.
In accordance with TME’s ESG report, “by leveraging DeepSeekR1’s AI-powered lyric-generation capabilities alongside QQ Music’s AI songwriting instruments, customers can craft unique songs that resonate with their feelings and private experiences, additional enriching their development as artistic people.”
TME says that QQ Music has change into the primary such platform in China to combine the DeepSeek mannequin.
Tencent Music Venus
The corporate (which operates flagship music app QQ Music, in addition to Kugou, Kuwo, plus on-line karaoke service, WeSing) additionally runs a platform devoted to AI music creation and manufacturing known as Tencent Music Venus.
This platform provides a number of AI-powered music instruments, together with the AI Tone Magician, a Music Separation software, and the AI Songwriter device, all of that are “designed to help musicians of their artistic processes”.
TME’s ‘AI Songwriter’ device lets musicians enter “a quick description of a artistic concept or customized lyrics” and the device will then “create unique AI-generated songs that embody each lyrics and vocals.”
In accordance with TME, these AI-generated songs “can then be simply printed on QQ Music with only one click on”.
TME works immediately with unbiased artists – and lets them distribute music on to TME providers like QQ Music – by way of a program known as Tencent Musician Platform.
TME reveals in newest ESG report that it counted 580,000 indie acts on the platform as of December 31, 2024.
That quantity grew by 100,000 within the 12 months to the top of December 2024.
“Customers can create unique AI-generated songs that embody each lyrics and vocals, which might then be simply printed on QQ Music with only one click on.”
TME ESG report
TME says it supplies these indie artists with “complete help throughout 4 key dimensions” together with “visitors, performances, creation camps, and multifaceted providers”.
These 580,000 indie artists even have entry to a spread of AI applied sciences.
TME explains in its ESG report: “Now we have launched clever instruments for lyric writing, composition, and association, in addition to content-generation instruments for brief music movies, album covers, and posters.
“These improvements empower musicians in each the creation and promotion of their work. Moreover, we launched noise-reduction and music-transcription options which have enhanced effectivity within the music creation course of.”
TME’s AI Tone Magician expertise, in the meantime, permits customers to report a voice clip between 30 seconds to 4 minutes to generate a personalised AI-generated vocal tone. After deciding on a most popular track, the system can produce an AI-generated model of the monitor with “a single click on”.
TME Music Separation Cloud Software service helps stem separation for uploaded songs, isolating vocal tracks from accompaniment or instrumental layers together with drums, bass, guitar, piano, and different mainstream devices, with the potential to separate as much as eight distinct audio tracks.
Music rightsholders are more likely to have a number of issues concerning TME’s AI tech enlargement, significantly as the corporate develops more and more refined instruments that may generate and manipulate music, which might apparently then be distributed on to its QQ music streaming platform.
The ESG report doesn’t explicitly element what music was used to coach its fashions, and rightsholders will seemingly need to know if their copyrighted works had been used with out permission or compensation to coach these AI techniques.
TME’s report says that AI-created content material will be “simply printed” on QQ, but it surely doesn’t tackle questions on attribution/possession of that content material.
That final level is all of the extra essential given TME has built-in DeepSeek into its platform. Outstanding voices within the trade have lately raised questions about whether or not DeepSeek itself is coaching on copyrighted music with out permission.
Inside TME’s 2024 Annual Report, printed alongside the ESG report as we speak (April 23), and which you’ll be able to learn right here, TME supplies the next breakdown for simply how deep the DeepSeek integration is:
“We’re incorporating AI into varied components of our product choices,” states TME.
“As an illustration, we’ve built-in the superior capabilities of DeepSeek giant language fashions (LLMs) to empower customers and creators in track creation, making a extra tailor-made and inclusive expertise.
“We additionally built-in DeepSeek into our AI assistants, remark sections, suggestion pages, and different person touchpoints, permitting customers to simply entry music data, obtain track feedback in numerous kinds, and luxuriate in a extra customized music expertise.
“Moreover, our AI-powered audio impact analyzes the audio to match songs with probably the most appropriate audio settings to create an optimum audio streaming efficiency. Moreover, our AI voice extraction function permits customers to separate unique vocals and instrumental tracks with a single click on which permits customers to sing alongside their favourite artists or get pleasure from instrumental-only mode for karaoke classes.”
“Inappropriate or controversial knowledge practices, by us or by others, may restrict the acceptance of our AI-enhanced merchandise and content material.”
TME Annual report
TME claims in its ESG report that it’s “dedicated to growing and deploying AI expertise in a way that’s authorized, moral, and safe.”
The corporate provides that, “to make sure that related Synthetic Intelligence Generated Content material (“AIGC”) merchandise and applied sciences adjust to authorized and regulatory necessities, moral requirements, and the rules of person privateness safety,” it has “enacted and applied the TME AIGC Product Compliance Handbook,” which it says “outlines the general compliance necessities for AIGC merchandise”.
Throughout the guide, in accordance with TME, is a bit devoted to “danger alerts and suggestions for cutting-edge AIGC-related points, similar to the suitable use of AIGC coaching knowledge, the possession and copyrightability of AIGC, and AIGC patent and trademark safety”.
In TME’s Annual Report, the corporate acknowledges that it’s “topic to dangers and uncertainties related to the evolving AI rules, potential infringement claims and growing prices for regulatory compliance. ”
TME explains: “As with most rising applied sciences, AI comes with its personal set of dangers and challenges that might have an effect on its adoption and our enterprise. AI algorithms could also be flawed, and the information used might be incomplete or biased. Inappropriate or controversial knowledge practices, by us or by others, may restrict the acceptance of our AI-enhanced merchandise and content material.
“Moreover, there are uncertainties across the possession and mental property safety of AIGC merchandise. Utilizing AIGC instruments may additionally result in potential copyright infringement and different authorized challenges. If we’re unable to safe the wanted permissions or licenses for utilizing AI tools-whether as a result of we can’t determine the rights holder or for another reason-we would possibly infringe on others’ rights which may result in financial claims, fines, penalties, or much less content material for our customers.
“The regulatory and authorized framework on generative AI is evolving quickly and won’t totally tackle each facet of its analysis, growth, and use.”
Within the very subsequent danger part throughout the report, devoted to “Pending or future litigation”, Tencent Music reveals that, as of December 31, 2024, there have been 315 lawsuits pending in reference to alleged copyright infringement on its platform, with an combination quantity of damages sought of roughly RMB 198.7 million (USD $27.2 million).
It doesn’t specify whether or not or not any of these infringement claims had been resulting from AI-generated content material.
Tencent Music Leisure, China’s largest music streaming firm, noticed its annual subscription income surge 25.9% YoY in 2024 to RMB 15.23 billion (USD $2.12 billion on the common trade price for 2024) from RMB 12.1 billion in 2023 (USD $1.71 billion on the common trade price for 2023).
The corporate attributed this efficiency to the enlargement of its paying person base and improved common income per paying person (ARPPU) boosted by its ‘Tremendous VIP’ (SVIP) tier.
TME’s paying subscribers elevated 13.4% YoY to 121 million in This fall 2024 from 106.7 million in This fall 2023. This additionally displays an addition of 2 million subscribers between Q3 and This fall 2024. ARPPU rose to RMB 11.10 ($1.54) in This fall from RMB 10.70 ($1.49) in This fall 2023.
The invasion of AI music on streaming providers was highlighted final week when France-headquartered music streaming service Deezer revealed that roughly 18% of all tracks now being uploaded to its platform are totally generated by synthetic intelligence.
The corporate disclosed final Wednesday (April 16) that greater than 20,000 AI-generated tracks are being delivered to its platform day by day – round double the 10,000 day by day AI uploads Deezer reported in January.
“AI-generated content material continues to flood streaming platforms like Deezer and we see no signal of it slowing down,” stated Aurelien Herault, Chief Innovation Officer at Deezer.Music Enterprise Worldwide
