Originally Posted by dcuny
snip ... However, here's something Udio produced when prompted to generate something in the style of the Beatles:

https://twitter.com/i/status/1778900566917165512

Udio didn't pay the rights holders of The Beatles songs to use their songs, and Paul McCartney didn't authorize Udio to use his voice.

In my mind, this is theft (well, technically massive copyright infringement), disguised the same way that money laundering hides the source of illegal profits.

David, I can understand why you would say that they used Beatle songs and Paul McCartney's voice because Udio was able to get something musical that sounded a lot like a Beatle song as sung by Paul McCartney. But, it was not a Beatle song and may not have been sung by Paul McCartney.

Sound-A-Like music has been a thing in country and rock music for as long as I can remember listening to music. Heck, the first "Beatles" album my family had was not by the Beatles but by a group of session musicians and singers that replicated songs from the Beatles first album before the album was available in the US.
A Dutch group, +++ Stars On 45 +++ performed amazing replications of not just Beatle songs but also songs like "Funkytown", "Boogie Nights", the Andrew Sisters, A Star Wars medley, ABBA and more.

The Wikipedia article about the making of the recordings is fascinating reading especially since it goes into an overview of how this was all reconstructed from scratch and digital technology like sampling was not available. +++ 45 RPM Medley +++ is a short 4:44 video of the 7" 45 RPM record. The original release was an extended play 12" recording that was 9:44 in length.

To me the funniest idea is they covered The Archies song "Sugar, Sugar". The Archies were themselves session musicians and singers brought together to sings songs for a Saturday morning cartoon show based on comic book characters.

The point I'm making is not that your wrong as I don't think your far off the mark. Only is it likely that original and copycat recordings were used as models. The copycats should add their own character to the end result making the end result different from what it might be with all originals.

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