And although I can play a few instruments, I lack the skills to make them happen on my own. I also can't write sheet music very well, so scoring something out in Cubase is a non-starter.
This means services like https://suno.ai give me mixed feelings. There's computers with enough smarts to take an input song and a prompt and generate a cover in a genre of choice, and that's amazing.
I'd argue not. It is not theft to write a new arrangement of a song nor to write a cover. It is not theft to draw on a lifetime of musical examples and styles to create that cover. The fact that a computer is doing it instead of a human writing and performing it should be irrelevant.
While there is far more "art" involved when a talented musician creates a cover (see somebody like @johntayjinf.bsky.social or @longestsoloever.com, both amazing artists), I don't see any harm in prompt engineering a cover in a style I want to hear...
...especially if it's extremely unlikely that another artist is going to create, say, an Irish folktune cover of a song from an obscure racing game from 1993.
It would, however, be wrong to claim artistic credit, beyond the most simple: "I can envision this song in an unexpected genre".
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Simultaneously there's ethical concerns, obviously. Is this a form of theft?
It would, however, be wrong to claim artistic credit, beyond the most simple: "I can envision this song in an unexpected genre".