Musical.AI, which bills itself as the company that built the world’s first secure platform for rights management in AI training, has partnered with China-headquartered license management firm Kanjian to bring what it says is a fully licensed, ready-to-use music catalog to AI developers.
“Unlike other catalogs, where additional opt-in from rights holders may be required, Kanjian’s collection is fully cleared for AI applications,” Musical.AI said in a statement on Tuesday (November 12).
That means tech and AI companies will now have access to Kanjian’s catalog to train AI models through an “ethically licensed solution that aligns with industry-leading standards for responsible data use.”
This past June, Musical.AI – formerly known as Somms.ai – launched a rights management platform designed to allow proper attribution and compensation for using copyrighted works in training AI.
The company described the platform as a “secure go-between” for rightsholders such as artists, labels and publishers, and generative AI companies.
Musical.AI says the addition of Kanjian’s catalog to the platform expands the range of genres and styles of music available to AI developers, on top of the platform’s existing partnerships with rightsholders and music libraries. The company didn’t disclose the size of Kanjian’s library.
“We are striving to onboard rights holders like Kanjian who have the global breadth and high-quality catalog that will allow our AI customers to train on music that reflects more of the world’s listening habits and culture,” Musical.AI co-founder and COO Matt Adell said.
“Kanjian represents a key partnership in Asia, and we’re excited to work with their forward-thinking team.”
Tinko Georgiev, VP at Kanjian, said the company is “thrilled to partner with Musical AI, an innovator that shares our vision for a fair and transparent music ecosystem.
“At Kanjian, we’ve been actively supporting AI training in music licensing, and this collaboration with Musical AI is a natural extension of the licensing infrastructure we’ve built over the last decade, reinforcing our commitment to seamless, transparent and efficient monetization between creators, rightsholders, and tech innovators.”
Kanjian describes itself as a “leader in license management automation for the music industry.” The company provides “royalty administration and collection across digital distribution, publishing, synchronization, public performance, neighboring rights, and copyright protection in one, end-to-end platform.”
“We are striving to onboard rights holders like Kanjian who have the global breadth and high-quality catalog that will allow our AI customers to train on music that reflects more of the world’s listening habits and culture.”
Matt Adell, Musical.AI
The Shanghai-based company says it has served more than 1 million creators and 100,000 organizations worldwide with a combined online listenership of more than 1 billion.
Musical.AI’s platform provides rightsholders with tools to monitor the use of their works in AI, make takedown requests, and set limits on how their content can be used in generative AI.
For AI developers, the platform offers a repository of licensed data for training and access to reports outlining the source materials used in the content generated by their AI.
“This collaboration with Musical.AI is a natural extension of the licensing infrastructure we’ve built over the last decade, reinforcing our commitment to seamless, transparent and efficient monetization between creators, rightsholders, and tech innovators.”
Tinko Georgiev, Kanjian
Musical.AI says it has developed the ability to calculate the percentage contribution of each source material in an AI-generated work, enabling fairer attribution and compensation to rightsholders.
The company was one of the first businesses to be certified by Fairly Trained, a non-profit organization that evaluates and certifies AI models based on their respect for creators’ rights.
“We have these incredible advances in AI outputs that require valuable human-created input. There are a few futures ahead of us; one is a future where inputs are seen as interchangeable commodities without distinct value. This is the future currently being promoted by some AI companies,” Musical.AI co-founder and CEO Sean Power said earlier this year.
“In another, arguably better future, we as humans insist that inputs are important, that music, art, ideas, words, and the human labor required to create them have value. If you value this work, then logic dictates that an attribution platform must exist. We are that platform.”Music Business Worldwide
