Hello, tech editor Alexei Oreskovic here, pitching in for Allie today. As you gather around the Thanksgiving table tomorrow, you may find yourself debating the state of the AI bubble with your guests. There’s plenty to chew over, from sky-high valuations and capital expenditures to circular business models and mouth-watering salaries.
So allow me to flag one new item on the table that may have gone unnoticed: Warner Music Group’s legal settlement with AI music startup Suno. The deal, announced on Tuesday, ends Warner’s copyright lawsuit against Suno and establishes a partnership that will let consumers create AI-generated music with the voices, compositions, names, and likenesses of any Warner Music artists who choose to participate.
This is a big deal not just for Suno, which raised $250 million at a $2.45 billion valuation earlier this month, and for its investors (including Menlo Ventures, Lightspeed, and Nvidia’s NVentures), but for AI in general. I’m not making a judgement here about whether the deal is good or bad for musicians or for the future of music as an art form; I’m simply recognizing how remarkable of a statement it is about the business world’s attitude towards artificial intelligence.
Consider the marquee copyright battle of the last big technology shift, when Viacom sued YouTube in 2007 over users uploading clips to the video site. That case dragged on for seven years before finally settling in 2014.
In AI, everything moves faster. And so, just one year after Warner sued Suno, the music label is now ready to embrace the startup and AI. Warner and Universal Music Group also each settled with Udio, another AI-generated music platform, in recent weeks. These record labels are in the intellectual property business. IP is their most important asset, and they instinctively fight tooth and nail to stop others from getting anywhere close to it.
The fact that they’re folding so soon, instead of digging in for a long fight, suggests they don’t expect the AI bubble to burst anytime soon.
We’re off until Monday. Happy Thanksgiving!
Alexei Oreskovic
X: @lexnfx
Email: alexei.oreskovic@fortune.com
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