Twigs along with other Industry Leaders testified before a subcommittee about intellectual property concerns with digital replicas in generative Artificial Intelligence. They also address First Amendment protections. The use of defects in the need to hold those committing fraud with a. I. Technology accountable. It is two hours. Program here for live coverage of the hearing on Artificial Intelligence. You can this hearing will come to order. I would like to thank all of our witnesses for participating today and my colleagues for joining me. I would specifically like to thank the staff are working on a consensus basis to put this hearing together and to think senator black and her staff are partnering with us on this hearing. About 10 months ago we held a subcommittee hearing on Artificial Intelligence and copyright law and i open that hearing with the debut of a new a. I. Generated a song. A riff with lyrics created by chatgpt and was climbing Technology Used to mimic his voice. The song was fun to create with permission from the rights holders of course, but it also highlighted some present legal questions that they raise. Was my song protected speech . If i hadnt gotten permission with the sun have violated his rights to his voice or his style . Since that hearing a. I. Generated replicas have only grown more pervasive from defeat videos of celebrities hawking products to songs maybe voice cloning tools posing as legitimate hits to skim cause mimicking a grandmas panicking voice. These were used to advertise medical consumers. These are just a few of the Musical Artists who have seen their voices mimicked by a. I. Clones. A Global Leader in online protection found one in four American Adults have experienced in a. I. Voice scam with three quarters having lost money. Scammers using a. I. Generated replicas in a grandchilds voice to trick a grandparent out of money have become so sophisticated both the fcc and ftc have issued warnings. These examples all relate to commercial speech, but a. I. Defects do not stop there. You have seen other examples. Explicit the fake images and videos addressed in the defiance act that senators have introduced. Collection interference addressed in the protect elections from deceptive a. I. Act that senators have introduced. These issues are not theoretical. Defect images of taylor swifts are brocaded on x before they were taken down. If was clone of President Biden encouraged voters to stay home during the New Hampshire primary. In slovakia a deep fake likely had an impact on the outcome of a national election. In summary tools have become increasingly sophisticated in it becomes easy to distribute fake images of someone. Fakes of their voice or likeness. We cannot let this challenge go on answered and in action should not be an option. As he cautioned during a state of the union we must regulate a. I. Voice impersonation but do so thoughtfully striking the right balance between defending rights and fostering a. I. Innovation and creativity. Both congress and the administration have been working to make that balance. They convened nine a. I. Forums last year and senator schumer encouraged committees to work on a. I. Legislation on a bipartisan basis as we are doing today. That is why i was excited to release this draft last october to protect people from having their images invoices or likeness used to create digital replicas that say or do things they never agreed to or would never say. It accomplishes this broad goal in two ways. By holding individuals and companies liable if they produce an unauthorized replica of an individuals voice or image or likeness and by holding platforms liable if they distribute an unauthorized digital replica if the platform knows the person depicted did not authorize it. Unlike current laws that many states have enacted which often are focused on celebrities who monetize their likeness in the ordinaries without a remedy now fakes act would apply to all individuals regardless of whether they commercialize their voices or likenesses. We try to be careful to balance these protections against free speech rights. The First Amendment will of course apply to this, but we made clear long recognized parody and satire remain available to creators to continue to foster the artistic and innovative potential. Over the past six months we have had literally dozens of meetings and received extensive feedback. Hundreds if not thousands of proposed revisions and tweaks and edits and wholesale changes on the discussion draft. They either loved or hated it when between. That was exactly the point and i appreciate the many suggestions we have received. That is also the point of having the ring today with folks who support the bill or oppose the bill and to have a real dialogue. The feedback is centered around a few core technical areas be whether we should include a notice to take on structure similar to the dmca or make the right balance with First Amendment exclusions. Whether a sevenyear postmortem term should be adjusted or narrowed be whether a bill should have preemptive impact over similar state laws be whether it should create some process by which individuals with limited resources and minimal damages can enforce the rights under the law. So i look forward to continuing this work with my colleagues and immediately following this hearing to work to promptly formalize the act for introduction next month. We have assembled a wonderful panel today with diverse perspectives and i encourage you to tell us what you like about the draft and what you dislike and any specific things about what changes you would like us to consider and why a. I will introduce the Witness Panel at the moment, but let me next invite him for his opening remarks. We are going through the act. We actually have a bunch of ip nerds or other interested parties are showing up. I really think it is unique among the other bills that we have carried forward in terms of intellectual property because it touches everybody. Normally it is about patent holders or creators. This touches everybody. It is interesting but also one of the reasons why we have to get it right. We have to make sure we come up with concrete solutions. We do not want to overreach. There is a need for legislation. Anyone who is in the do not fix it category i respectfully disagree, but i would be fascinated to hear your testimony. We also do not want to miss the opportunity was stifled for innovation. That is why its important to get it right. We do not even know what it is going to look like 10 years from now. It will be even more sophisticated over a short period of time. We have all seen replicas and deep fakes. Photos and videos and audio. We will show you an example here shortly. The number is just growing, so we have to work on it and do the fair things. Subject to really fake media for much of the last 100 years. Now it is getting serious and is producing and multiplying at a rate that requires congressional action. I think i want to go forward a little bit in my comments because i think the senator did a good job of describing some of the things we with our bill, but i would like to think of this video to give you a recent example. This was interesting. I interact with degenerative a. I. For about every morning and have for about two years since chatgpt first released to their beta version or open a. I. , and it was a week or so ago that i saw the estate of tupac questioning a recent production and is said more to come. We thought it was probably interesting for maybe folks that have followed the issue like us to show the video. We have staff ready to cue that up. We need ya the west coast savior if you deal with this viciously you seem a little nervous about all the publicity [ bleep ] canadian we need to know the west coast victory heard it on the bud and podcast its got to that entire musical rendition is a product of a. I. And interestingly that image is something that is the property of tupacs estate and the other is in a. I. Generated image that was obviously done in violation to the extent it was used for marshall purposes in violation of copyright. Just gives you an example. This is a hypothetical. It happened shortly after drake released that song. So we have got work to do. Legislation addressing issues of digital replicas will have a multibilliondollar implication. We have got to get it under control. There are a lot of questions that have to be asked. My office in particular is guilty of putting drafts out there knowing that they are drafts. Sometimes we even do is sooner without the cooperation or involvement of other members because we put scary stuff out there. In this case we did not do that but we try to work on putting out a discussion draft that makes sense we got a lot of things we have to work out. The questions we need answered is it wise that individuals have no right to license out of their digital likeness unless they retain counsel you should be create an exception for harmless noncommercial users. Should there be a notice and takedown provision . There is a litany. I will submit the rest of my written statement for the record, but we have to act. Hopefully in this congress we can act, which means you have to move very quickly or at a minimum laid out a baseline that we can pick up when we come back with a new congress and get it right, so i look forward to advancing everybodys active collaboration. I will always give you the same warning i give everyone be the only thing that makes me mad is when i see somebody trying to through guerrilla warfare undermine the goodfaith efforts of this committee and colleague if you are at the table you can have an influence. If you arent you are going to be on the table. What is in everyone just recognize our office is open to constructive criticism and use cases over the policy doesnt make sense, but if you are in the category of it is and broke you are not with moderate times but i look forward to a good and productive hearing today, and thank you in advance for your productive collaboration as we move forward. Thank you for another positive and engaging hearing. It has been a great experience serving on this committee with up today we welcome six witnesses to testify about the act. A singer, songwriter, producer, and dancer who has used ai to help her create, and also has had personal experience with unauthorrized deepfakes. Its great to have a voice present from the creative community. Next, we have a National Executive and director for sag aftra. The Screen Actors Guild of radio, and television artists, a labor representing 160,000 members who work in film, television, music, and more. Also the voice of the creative community. Then we have ben shifter sheffner. Thank you, ben. We welcome graham daveys, representing principally audio streaming platforms like spotify and youtube. Mr. Daveys davies also has a history of music. She teaches and writes on intellectual property law. After i swear in the witnesses, each will have each will have five minutes to provide a summary of the Opening Statement. Senators have written statements. Then we will proceed to questioning. Each senator gets five minutes for the first round. We will likely have two or three rounds of questioning. Time and attendance permitting. Will you please stand and raise your right hand to be sworn in . Help you god . Thank you all. Let the record reflect the witnesses have been sworn. Mr. Kinsle, you can proceed with your Opening Statement. Chairman kuhns, rank and member tillis, and members of the subcommittee. Im robert kinsle, chief executive officer of the warner music group. Being here today is something i could not have imagined as a young boy growing up behind the iron curtain in comm new york. In in comm there i met an amazing woman from the Dominican Republic who eventually became my wife. Now we have two amazing american daughters. I am a proud u. S. Citizen and i have deep appreciation for the freedoms at the heart of this great country having grown up without them. For the past 25 years i have been a tech and media post executive. I joined one of music last year after 12 years at youtube and eight years at netflix. Warner music is home to an incredible artists moving culture gloss the globe. One of those artists, twigs, is here with me today. Shes an extraordinarily gifted singer, songwriter, actor, and performer. I would also like to thank Duncan Crabtreeireland who led the recent collective targeting negotiations that addresses concerns surrounding ai and defense of artist rights. Music has so often been the canary in the coal mine for the broader trends in our society. More than any other form of communication or entertainment, music drives culture and innovation. That is happening again with generative ai. Today Music Companies are helping artist, and Tech Companies figure out this new world with his both exciting and daunting. Its our job to not only help amplify creativity but to protect the rights, their livelihoods, and their identities. Across the industry legends from Roberta Flack to the beatles have embraced ai as a tool to enhance their creativity. At the same time generative ai is appropriating artists and entities using deep fakes to depict people doing, saying, or singing things that it never happened before. My accident is a vestige of my Eastern European upbringing. You can hear my identity and my voice. Through ai it is very easy for somebody to impersonate me and cause all manner of havoc. They could speak to an artist in a way that could destroy our relationship. They could say untrue things about our publicly traded company to the media that would damage our business. Unfettered technology has the potential to impact everyone. Even all of you. Your identities could be appropriated to mislead your constituents. The truth is everyone is vulnerable. Families defrauded by voice clones pretending to be relatives, people placed in pornography without their consent. Schoolchildren having their faces inserted into humiliating things. Some people have spoken of responsible ai as a threat to freedom of speech. It is precisely the opposite. Ai can put words in your mouth and make you say things you did not say or dont believe. That is not freedom of speech. We appreciate the efforts of this committee to address this problem including the no fix act discussion draft authored by chairman Ranking Member tillis, senator black and and senator klobuchar. We strongly support the nine bipartisan no ai fraud act introduced earlier this year and the recently enacted elvis act in tennessee. As the Committee Moves toward the introduction of a senate bill, there are three elements n the bill should contain to be effective. One, and enforceable intellectual property right for likeness and voice. Each person should be allowed to license or deny that right on freemarket terms and seek redress for unauthorized uses. Two, respect for important First Amendment principles without going any further and providing loopholes that create more victims. Three, effective deterrence. To incentivize a commercial marketplace we need to maintain consequences for ai model builders and digital platforms that knowingly violate a persons property right. I applied the committee for its leadership addressing these challenging and rapidly developing issues with urgency. Congress should pass legislation this year before the genie is out of the bottle and we still have a chance to get this right. I look forward to answering your questions. Thank you. Thank you, mr. Kyncl. Twigs. As artists we dedicate a lifetime of hard work and sacrifice in the pursuit of excellence. Not only in the expectation of achieving commercial success and critical acclaim, but also in the hope of creating a body of work and reputation that is our legacy. So why am i here today . Im here because my music, my dancing, my acting, the way my body moves in front of the camera and the way my voice resonates through a microphone is not by chance. They are reflections of who i am. My art is a canvas on which i paint my identity and the sustaining foundation of my livelihood. It is the very essence of my being. Yet this is under threat. Ai cannot replicate the depth of my life journey. Yet those who control it hold the power to make the light glitches the likeness of my art replicated and falsely claim my identity. This threatens to rewrite and unravel the fabric of my very existence. We must enact regulation now to safeguard our authenticity and protect against this appropriation of our name or rights. Three decades ago we did not realize that the internet would embed itself so deeply into the core of our everyday lives. Policies and controls to keep pace with the emergence of technology were not put in place to protect artists, young people and those that are vulnerable. Ai is the biggest leap in Technological Advancement since the internet. You know the saying. Full me once, shame on you. For me twice, shame on me. If we make the same mistake with the emergence of ai, it will be shame on us. Let me be clear. I am not against ai. As a future facing artist, new technologies are exciting tool that can be used to express promotions, create fantasy worlds and touch the hearts of many people. In the past year ive developed my own deep fake version of myself thats not only train to my personality but can use my exact tone of voice to speak many languages. These and similar technologies are highly evaluating valuable tools. This, however, is all under my control and i can grant or refuse consent in a way that is meaningful. What is not acceptable is when my art and my identity can simply be taken by thirdparty and exploited falsely for their own gain without my consent due to the absence of appropriate legislative control and restriction. History has shown us time again that in moments of great Technological Advancement those in the arts have been the first at their work exploited and in many instances commoditized. Soon after it follows that the general and more vulnerable public suffer the same exploitation. By protecting artists with legislation at such a momentous time in histo