AI & Creative & LICENSING: 1)With the rise of AI ‘slop,’ Canada’s creative sector sets sights on licensing regime; 2)Sony, Warner and Universal sign AI music licensing deals with startup Klay

Courtesy Barrie360.com and Canadian Press

By Anja Karadeglija, November 15, 2025

On Nov. 1, Xania Monet appeared for the first time on the Adult R&B Billboard chart. One week later, the song ‘Walk my Walk’ by Breaking Rust topped Billboard’s country digital song sales chart.

While both performers look and sound human, they’re not. Both are generated by artificial intelligence.

Monet was the first AI-generated artist to debut on a Billboard airplay chart.

For human artists, it is immense cause for concern.

“I’m seeing increasingly people are scared and they’re angry and they are upset about what’s happening here,” Arun Chaturvedi, president of the Songwriters’ Association of Canada, said in an interview when asked about the reaction to AI-generated artists.

“As it was, 100,000 songs are being uploaded to Spotify a day from human creators, and now that just is increasing exponentially with this sort of AI slop, which is making it even harder for artists to gain traction.”

Musicians aren’t the only artists who are worried. The House of Commons Heritage committee on Monday will begin drafting a report after completing hearings for a study on AI and the creative sector earlier this month.

MPs on the committee heard from groups and unions representing creative industries, including music, publishing and TV and movie production.

AI-generated content is only possible because AI systems ingest massive amounts of existing content. Creative groups take issue with AI’s use of copyright-protected works without permission and want to establish a licensing system covering such use.

A group representing Canadian publishers pointed out that not even the prime minister is immune from AI competition.

John Illingworth, executive director of the Association of Canadian Publishers, said during an appearance at the committee there has been a “deluge” of low-quality, AI-generated books on the big distribution platforms.

“An Amazon.ca search for ‘Mark Carney biography,’ for example, brings up a slew of purported biographies of our prime minister. Many have AI-generated cover art and some rank higher in search results than his own Value(s),” Illingworth said, referring to Carney’s book published in 2021.

“The average consumer has no means of distinguishing a properly researched book from incoherent slop until they buy it,” he added.

Victoria Shen, executive director at the Writers Guild of Canada, told the MPs generative AI is “trained on the work of artists and creators and now threatens their livelihood.”

Tania Kontoyanni, chair of the board at the Union des Artistes, said artists have been feeding a beast that now threatens to devour them.

Wyatt Tessari L’Allié, founder and executive director at AI Governance and Safety Canada, said platforms like Spotify and Google are already flooded with AI content — and that’s only the beginning.

“Within a few years, when we will likely have high-quality customized AI content available on demand at very low cost, we could easily be in a situation where over 90 per cent of what Canadians see on their platforms is AI-generated,” he said.

The CEO of Disney indicated this week that the Disney+ streaming platform could allow users to generate their own content.

The creative industry groups aren’t asking the government to try to stop their AI competition. They want the government to require transparency from AI companies so they can see when their works are being used, which would help move toward a licensing system.

“Transparency in terms of the ingestion of works into the training of a system is critical for artists to actually know what’s being used and what they’re able to license,” Access Copyright’s legal counsel Erin Finlay told MPs.

“Without that information, artists are left completely in the cold. Should I license? Can I license? Is it being used? I don’t know.”

Lisa Broadfoot, vice-president of industry and business affairs at the Canadian Media Producers Association, said the group “supports the development of a vibrant licensing market where producers and other rights holders can freely negotiate for the use of their intellectual property for AI training and other uses.”

The question of how copyright law addresses the use of copyrighted works for training AI is currently in front of the courts in both Canada and the United States. Creative industry groups urged MPs not to add new exceptions to the Copyright Act that would benefit the AI companies.

The question of whether to add a new text and data mining exception to the legislation was one of the issues the Department of Heritage considered in a consultation two years ago. The tech industry is in favour of the exception, which would apply to the use of material for training.

Michael Geist, Canada research chair in internet and e-commerce law at the University of Ottawa, told the committee that AI development will move out of the country if Canada makes it more difficult or expensive to develop the technology. 

“It’s therefore essential to ensure that our copyright frameworks are globally competitive,” he said.

“That’s why we need copyright laws that continue to strike the balance through effective fair dealing rules and, given the use of text and data mining exceptions elsewhere, including the EU, the appropriate exceptions that position Canada as receptive to AI opportunities.”

2)Sony, Warner and Universal sign AI music licensing deals with startup Klay

Courtesy Barrie360.com and The Associated Press

By Kelvin Chan, November 20, 2025

The world’s biggest music labels have struck AI licensing deals with a little-known startup named Klay Vision, the companies said Thursday, the latest in a series of deals that underlines how the technology is shaking up the music industry ’s business model.

Warner Music Group, Universal Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment, and their publishing arms, all signed separate agreements with Klay, according to an announcement posted on Warner’s website.

It comes a day after Warner inked two other deals involving artificial intelligence, with startups Udio and Stability AI.

There were few details released about the agreements or about Klay, which is based in Los Angeles, and what it does.

The deal terms will help Klay “further evolve music experiences for fans, leveraging the potential of AI, while fully respecting the rights of artists, songwriters, and rightsholders,” the announcement said. Klay has been working with the music industry on a licensing “framework for an AI-driven music experience” and has built a “large music model” trained only on licensed music.

AI-generated music has been flooding streaming services amid the rise of chatbot-like song generators that instantly spit out new tunes based on prompts typed by users without any musical knowledge. The synthetic music boom has also resulted in a wave of AI singers and bands that have climbed the charts after racking up millions of streams, even though they don’t exist in real life.

Warner, Universal and Sony had last year sued Suno and Udio, makers of two popular AI song generation tools, accusing them of exploiting the recorded works of artists without compensating them. But there are signs that the disputes are being resolved through negotiation.

Warner, which represents artists including Ed Sheeran and Dua Lipa, said Wednesday that it resolved its copyright infringement litigation against Udio. The two companies said they’re teaming up to develop Udio’s licensed AI music creation service set to launch in 2026 that will allow users to remix tunes by established artists.

They provided no financial details on their agreement, which includes Warner’s recording and publishing businesses, but it will create “new revenue streams for artists and songwriters, while ensuring their work remains protected.”

It’s similar to an agreement that Universal Music Group signed last month with Udio, which triggered a backlash because Udio stopped users from downloading the songs they created.

Udio said it will remain a “closed-system” as it prepares to launch the new service next year. If artists and songwriters choose to let their works be used, they’ll be credited and paid when users remix or cover their songs, or make new tunes with their voices and compositions, the companies said.

Warner said itthis week that it was working with Stability AI on developing “professional-grade tools” for musicians, songwriters and producers.