Copyright, Creative Rights, and AI in Music Education

Abstract

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a disruptive force in creative rights and intellectual property. The creative power of AI brings with it challenges related to authorship, ownership, copyrightability, and tensions regarding the works that might inform AI responses. However, while AI’s disruption is felt acutely at the present, it is but the latest change in an evolving creative rights and copyright landscape. This chapter explores the evolution of copyright policies. It begins with a discussion of the all rights reserved copyright licenses and moves to new frameworks for licensing the use of intellectual property like Creative Commons (CC). It then features a discussion of how new media practices and participatory culture have changed copyright enforcement by centering the media platforms that artists and creators use to share their work. This leads to an exploration of how AI might amplify and extend evolving intellectual property trends. Copyright issues are framed through challenges that music educators encounter in their work, including how the prevailing view of copyright as a set of rules to comply with may prevent music teachers and learners from engaging in rich and compelling discussions about creative rights. The chapter concludes by offering a creative rights and critical literacies framework to support curricular engagements to deepen music educators’ and students’ understandings of copyright, intellectual property, and how they interact with AI.