Latest news with #musictech
TechCrunch
09-07-2025
- Business
- TechCrunch
ChatGPT hallucinated about music app Soundslice so often, the founder made the lie come true
Earlier this month, Adrian Holovaty, founder of music-teaching platform Soundslice, solved a mystery that had been plaguing him for weeks. Weird images of what were clearly ChatGPT sessions kept being uploaded to the site. Once he solved it, he realized that ChatGPT had become one of his company's greatest hype men – but it was also lying to people about what his app could do. Holovaty is best known as one of the creators of the open-source Django project, a popular Python web development framework (though he retired from managing the project in 2014). In 2012, he launched Soundslice, which remains 'proudly bootstrapped,' he tells TechCrunch. Currently, he's focused on his music career both as an artist and as a founder. Soundslice is an app for teaching music, used by students and teachers. It's known for its video player synchronized to the music notations that guide users on how the notes should be played. It also offers a feature called 'sheet music scanner' that allows users to upload an image of paper sheet music and, using AI, will automatically turn that into an interactive sheet, complete with notations. Holovaty carefully watches this feature's error logs to see what problems occur, where to add improvements, he said. That's where he started seeing the uploaded ChatGPT sessions. Techcrunch event Save up to $475 on your TechCrunch All Stage pass Build smarter. Scale faster. Connect deeper. Join visionaries from Precursor Ventures, NEA, Index Ventures, Underscore VC, and beyond for a day packed with strategies, workshops, and meaningful connections. Save $450 on your TechCrunch All Stage pass Build smarter. Scale faster. Connect deeper. Join visionaries from Precursor Ventures, NEA, Index Ventures, Underscore VC, and beyond for a day packed with strategies, workshops, and meaningful connections. Boston, MA | REGISTER NOW They were creating a bunch of error logs. Instead of images of sheet music, these were images of words and a box of symbols known as ASCII tablature. That's a basic text-based system used for guitar notations that uses a regular keyboard. (There's no treble key, for instance, on your standard QWERTY keyboard.) Image Credits:Adrian Holovaty The volume of these ChatGPT session images was not so onerous that it was costing his company money to store them and crushing his app's bandwidth, Holovaty said. He was baffled, he wrote in a blog post about the situation. 'Our scanning system wasn't intended to support this style of notation. Why, then, were we being bombarded with so many ASCII tab ChatGPT screenshots? I was mystified for weeks — until I messed around with ChatGPT myself.' That's how he saw ChatGPT telling people they could hear this music by opening a Soundslice account and uploading the image of the chat session. Only, they couldn't. Uploading those images wouldn't translate the ASCII tab into audio notes. He was struck with a new problem. 'The main cost was reputational: new Soundslice users were going in with a false expectation. They'd been confidently told we would do something that we don't actually do,' he described to TechCrunch. He and his team discussed their options: Slap disclaimers all over the site about it — 'No, we can't turn a ChatGPT session into hearable music' — or build that feature into the scanner, even though he had never before considered supporting that offbeat musical notation system. He opted to build the feature. 'My feelings on this are conflicted. I'm happy to add a tool that helps people. But I feel like our hand was forced in a weird way. Should we really be developing features in response to misinformation?' he wrote. He also wondered if this was the first documented case of a company having to develop a feature because ChatGPT kept repeating, to many people, its hallucination about it. The fellow programmers on Hacker News had an interesting take about it: Several of them said that it's no different than an over-eager human salesperson promising the world to prospects and then forcing developers to deliver new features. 'I think that's a very apt and amusing comparison!' Holovaty agreed.
Forbes
28-05-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Inside Music Biz 2025: AI, Attribution And The Evolving Music Ecosystem
Music Biz Logo This year's Music Biz 2025 conference in Atlanta brought together an eclectic mix of executives, technologists and policymakers to unpack the future of music. If there was one unifying theme across dozens of panels and town halls, it was this: the music industry is not just transforming—it's decentralizing, digitizing and demanding new rules for engagement. The OpenPlay Hackathon: Co-Creating The Future Of Music Tech One of the most compelling examples of this transformation was the OpenPlay x Music Biz Hackathon. Participants used 'vibe coding'—prompt-based AI programming—to rapidly prototype software solutions with tools like Cursor, Lovable, and Bolt. More than a showcase, the hackathon functioned as a collaborative lab for next-gen tools, backed by a $10,000 prize pool. The event exemplified the conference's drive to dismantle systemic silos: 18 companies opened their technology stacks to developers, music professionals, artists, and students who co-created products addressing challenges like rights tracking, revenue attribution, and fan experience design. As hackathon Director, Chris McMurtry explained that for a moment, 'the data silos were truly broken.' Diego Leon, a student based in Berlin, won first place with an app that used Audio Shake and Surreal APIs to analyze audio and recommend rights-holder percentages. Second place went to Serona and Katrina from the Mechanical Licensing Collective for Samplify—an app providing automated analysis for music interpolation and sampling requests. A New Global and Cultural Mandate Conversations around global strategy and diversity — from 'Breaking Borders' to 'Gender Bias in Music Recommendation' — reinforced a powerful mandate for 2025 and beyond: success will require cultural fluency, ethical clarity, and algorithmic accountability. Julie Knibb, Co-Founder of Music Tomorrow, frames it succinctly: 'A model mirrors its data, not reality. Catalogs skew male, so male artists dominate. But listeners often favor artists of their own gender. Hyperpersonalization amplifies this, reinforcing existing tastes rather than correcting systemic imbalance.' This cycle isn't just an ethical concern—it's an economic one. Algorithmic bias determines who gets discovered, who gets paid, and ultimately, what audiences hear next. Whether building localized DSP strategies or correcting systemic bias, the road ahead demands more than just technical agility—it requires intentional leadership and proactive reform. Human First: Resilience, Burnout And Reinvention Mental health wasn't just a side conversation; it was a core part of the conference's ethos. In 'The Moments In Between,' moderators Kei Henderson and Brandie Johnson explored the emotional valleys creatives traverse between high points. Alongside this, 'Money For Something' tackled the economics of burnout—linking poor mental health directly to lost revenues from canceled tours and burned-out teams. The message was clear: supporting people isn't a cost—it's an investment. Independent And Ascending Independents are no longer the scrappy underdogs—they're reshaping the business model. With MIDiA reporting indie market share at 47%, up nearly 10 points since 2022, panels like '47% And Climbing' and 'How To Grow And Stay Independent' zeroed in on how technology and financial innovation are fueling growth. Indie artists and leaders are building companies that scale without sacrificing creative or economic control, often relying on interoperability and direct-to-fan platforms to stay agile and profitable. AI, Attribution And The Age Of Machine Music The influence of artificial intelligence was everywhere—not in theory, but in tools. From the 'AI Town Hall 2.0' retrospective to 'Value Creation In The AI Era,' the conversations focused on tangible innovation. Panels such as 'Attribution First' and 'AI In Music' warned of the dangers of skipping over proper crediting and licensing. and OpenPlay showcased how modern infrastructure can finally close attribution gaps and future-proof revenue flows. Yet ethics weren't far behind. 'The Art Of Licensing' and 'Coding Fairness' examined the deeper philosophical questions: Who owns art in an AI world? What price should creators pay for innovation? These weren't just hypotheticals—they were frameworks for action. Metadata And Monetization: Infrastructure Reimagined Sessions on metadata, rights management and fraud prevention got into the technical weeds while doubled down on the urgent need for action. 'Metadata Mastery' and 'Catalog Power Play' reminded attendees that revenue starts with clean, structured data. Meanwhile, 'Liable Or Safe?' sent a chilling message to execs ignoring streaming fraud: legal liability is no longer optional—it's imminent. The Money Behind The Music Capital is flooding into music rights—and not just for the major players. Panels like 'Indie Music Rights: Major Money Moves' and 'Investing In Music's Future' demonstrated how royalty-backed financing and catalog optimization are being extended to mid-tier and independent artists. Companies like Sound Royalties and Primary Wave outlined financial models that offer cash flow without surrendering control. Engagement Reimagined: From Roblox To Reels Reaching fans today requires an evolved playbook. The demise of the playlist model was underscored in 'Playlists Are Dead,' which highlighted how immersive experiences on platforms like Roblox are outperforming traditional digital strategies. Meanwhile, 'User-Generated Hits' and 'Finding Fan Archetypes' explored how remixes, mashups and algorithmic virality can drive discovery—if artists are prepared to license and monetize them properly. Building Bridges, Not Silos Lastly, panels like 'Plug & Play Success' and 'Break The Silos. Build The Future.' addressed a core infrastructural problem: fragmentation. Whether it's metadata silos, disconnected platforms or outdated licensing pathways, inefficiencies are eroding value. By embracing interoperability and collaborative tech ecosystems, the industry can scale faster—and smarter. The Takeaway Music Biz 2025 wasn't about predicting the future—it was about building it. Whether you're an artist, investor, label or tech founder, the message was consistent: the next era of music won't be dominated by the biggest companies, but by the most adaptable ones. Those who can balance innovation with attribution, data with empathy and independence with scale are the ones that thrive.
Sky News
16-05-2025
- Business
- Sky News
Superstar Adele joins backers of music royalties platform Audoo
Adele, the Grammy award-winning artist, has joined the list of music superstars investing in Audoo, a music technology company which helps artists to receive fairer royalty payments. Sky News has learnt that the British musician and Adam Clayton, the U2 bassist, have injected money into Audoo as part of a £7m funding round. The pair join Sir Elton John, Sir Paul McCartney and ABBA's Bjorn Ulvaeus as shareholders in the company. Changes to Audoo's share register were filed at Companies House in recent days. Audoo, which was established by former musician Ryan Edwards, is trying to address the perennial issue of public performance royalties, in order to ensure musicians are rewarded when their work is played in public venues. Mr Edwards is reported to have been motivated to set up the company after hearing his own music played at football stadia and in bars, without any payment for it. Estimates suggest that artists lose out on billions of dollars of unaccounted royalties each year. London-based Audoo uses a monitoring device - which it calls an Audio Meter - to recognise songs played in public venues, and which is said to have a 99% success rate. It has struck what it describes as industry-first partnerships with organisations including the music licensing company PPL/PRS to track and report songs played in public performance locations such as cafes, hair salons, shops and gyms. "At Audoo, we're incredibly proud of the continued support we're receiving as we work to make music royalties fairer and more transparent for artists and rights-holders around the world through our pioneering technology," Mr Edwards told Sky News in a statement on Friday. "We have successfully reached £7m in our latest funding round. "This funding marks a pivotal moment for Audoo as we focus on our growth in North America and across Europe, bringing us closer to our mission of revolutionising the global royalty landscape." Sources said the new capital would be used partly to finance Audoo's growth in the US. The latest funding round takes the total amount of money raised by the company since its launch to more than $30m. Mr Edwards has spoken of his desire to establish a major presence in Europe and the US because of their status as the world's biggest recorded music markets.
