The New Music Machine
🤖 TN musicians take on AI · Vandy employee sues after denied gender-affirming care coverage · Nashville hospital bucks the norm with in-house drug prep · Much more!
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Tennessee’s musicians are taking on AI before it takes over Music City.
From Megan Podsiedlik
Local singer-songwriter Jason Isbell, alongside musicians David Lowery and Eduardo Calle, is the latest in joining a lawsuit claiming an AI music company used his identity to train its product without his consent. According to Rolling Stone, the suit alleges that Suno turned identifying attributes of the musicians into “tokens” that could generate music and descriptions resembling their work.
This isn’t the only case filed against Suno by a Tennessee artist. Country musician Anthony Justice filed a suit alleging Suno downloaded copyrighted songs from YouTube, copied them to train its AI, and then generated music similar to his protected works. He also filed a similar lawsuit against Udio for allegedly training its AI models with his copyrighted recordings without authorization.
And the cases are piling up: Nashville musician Adam Paddock says AI companies used his music without consent, Concord Music Group is suing Anthropic for using copyrighted lyrics/music to train AI, and the American Federation of Musicians even sued a number of major labels that licensed recording catalogs out to Suno and Udio without compensating the session musicians who played on the tracks.
TN taming the wild frontier, kinda As one of America’s biggest music hubs, it’s no surprise that Tennessee is home to many of the musicians on the front lines of taming AI’s wild frontier. And state lawmakers have hopped on board.
“From Beale Street to Broadway, to Bristol and beyond, Tennessee is known for our rich artistic heritage that tells the story of our great state,” Governor Bill said in a press release when introducing the state’s ELVIS Act in 2024. “As the technology landscape evolves with artificial intelligence, we’re proud to lead the nation in proposing legal protection for our best-in-class artists and songwriters.”
While Tennessee’s Ensuring Likeness, Voice, and Image Security Act of 2024 (ELVIS Act) amended the state’s right-of-publicity law to address AI-generated and synthetic media, it does not resolve the underlying copyright questions emerging around AI training. Instead, musicians are largely relying on federal copyright law to challenge the use of their work in AI training.
✹ THE ARCHITECTURE OF OUR GLORY
Back to Our Roots We're sponsoring an event with the Meriwether Academy as they host Justin Shubow to speak about how beauty, civic architecture, and public design shape American culture and identity.
Shubow is president of the National Civic Art Society and a former chairman of the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, best known for championing classical and traditional architecture in American public life.
For gentlemen only. Buy Tickets.
HEADLINES
- 🏥 Vanderbilt employee sues after denied insurance coverage for gender-affirming care. A Vanderbilt employee has sued the university after allegedly being denied insurance coverage for gender-affirming care, arguing the exclusion discriminates against transgender employees. The lawsuit comes amid broader changes at Vanderbilt, which announced earlier this year that it would stop providing gender-affirming plastic surgeries to adults, citing operational limitations and a lack of surgical coverage. (Post)
- 💉 Not all hospitals use their own pharmacies to prepare surgery drugs like Ascension Saint Thomas does. An investigation into the devastating drug mix-up at Ascension Saint Thomas Midtown found that the hospital's in-house pharmacy prepared the drugs used during surgery, unlike several other major Nashville-area hospitals that use manufacturer-prepared, single-dose vials. The difference is significant because a state investigation found pharmacy staff mistakenly prepared potassium phosphate instead of anesthetic, resulting in four patients suffering catastrophic complications, with at least two left paralyzed. (NewsChannel 5)
- 🎰 $1.3M+ recovered, 13 arrested amid Columbia illegal gambling investigation. A months-long investigation into illegal gambling in Columbia, TN, resulted in 13 arrests, 144 gambling machines seized, and $1.3+ million in cash recovered, along with more than 100 pounds of kratom and THCA. Authorities executed more than 20 search warrants at 20 businesses and two homes after undercover officers identified businesses allegedly operating illegal gambling machines and paying out winnings. (WKRN)
✹ METRO COUNCIL WATCH
Big Council Watch Update We built it to grade council members on where their money comes from. It does considerably more than that now. Make an account, follow the members you care about, and we'll send you the bills they introduce, the ones they co-sponsor, how they vote, and who they vote with. Local government isn't invisiuble, it's just unreadable. This is our effort to fix that. (Take a Look)
DEVELOPMENT
- ABP Capital took ownership of the former Cumulus Media headquarters site (NBJ)
- WeHO set for performance, events venue at site once housing Corsair Artisan Distillery (Post)
- One City eyed for apartment building (Post)
- Oracle’s Germantown Pedestrian Bridge moves into permit phase (Fox 17)
✹ PROPERTY TAX CALCULATOR
What Moved Your Bill? Use our handy new tool to see what contributed to your property tax bill increase: the reappraisal or the rate hike. (Try It Out)
THINGS TO DO
View our calendar for the week here.
📅 Visit our On The Radar list to find upcoming events around Nashville.
🎧 On Spotify: Pamphleteer's Picks, a playlist of our favorite bands in town this week.
👨🏻🌾 Check out our Nashville farmer's market guide.
TONIGHT
🎸 Meltt @ The Blue Room, 7p, $27.86, Info
🎸 Waylon Payne @ Skinny Dennis, 7p, No Cover, Info
🎸 LB Beistad @ The Basement, 7p, $17.72, Info
+ grungy dream-pop
🎺 The Rougarou 7-Piece New Orleans Brass Band @ Rudy'z Jazz Room, 7p, $15, Info
🪕 Steve Huber & The Flatheads @ Station Inn, 9p, $20, Info
🎙️ Open Mic @ Fox and Locke, 6:30p, Free, Info
🎸 Kelley's Heroes @ Robert's Western World, 6:30p, Free, Info
📰 Check out the full newsletter archive here.
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Today's newsletter is brought to you by Davis Hunt, Megan Podsiedlik, and Camelia Brennan.