Billie Eilish, Lorde and Green Day are among 250 artists to sign an open letter to pass the Fans First Act to protect concert-goers from ticket scams and ridiculous resale prices.
Celebrities like Diplo, Cyndi Lauper, Fall Out Boy and Becky G. signed the document calling on the Senate Commerce Committee to do more to prevent bots and scammers from making buying tickets a laborious task.
The letter began: “As artists and members of the music community, we depend on touring for our livelihood and we value music fans above all else.
“We stand united in saying that the current system is broken; predatory resellers and secondary platforms engage in deceptive ticketing practices to inflate ticket prices and deprive fans of the chance to see their favorite artists at a discounted price. fair.”
He then blasted “predatory resellers” who harm the fan experience.
They said: “Predatory dealers should not be more profitable than people who dedicate their lives to their art. »
If the bill passes, it wants to ban “fake tickets and deceptive marketing tactics that trick our fans into paying more for tickets that may never allow them to attend a show.”
“What was I made for?” Hitmaker Billie was recently among 200 music stars to call for an end to the “predatory” use of generative AI in the music industry.
The letter – which was also signed by Sam Smith, Jon Bon Jovi, Nicki Minaj and Katy Perry – was sent to machine learning software companies, who are calling for stricter regulations on the technology in the industry to “ protect against the predatory use of AI to steal the voices and likenesses of professional artists, violate the rights of creators, and destroy the music ecosystem. »
The letter, written by the nonprofit Artist Rights Alliance (ARA), said: “Make no mistake: we believe that, when used responsibly, AI has enormous potential to make advance human creativity and in a way that enables the development and growth of new and exciting experiences for music fans around the world.
“Unfortunately, some platforms and developers are using AI to sabotage creativity and harm artists, songwriters, musicians and rights holders. When used irresponsibly, AI poses enormous threats to our ability to protect our privacy, our identities, our music and our livelihoods.
“Some of the largest and most powerful companies are using our work to train AI models without permission. These efforts directly aim to replace the work of human artists with massive amounts of AI-created “sounds” and “images” that significantly dilute the royalties paid to artists. For many musicians, artists and songwriters just trying to make ends meet, this would be catastrophic.
The organization warned that unregulated machine learning software would “devalue” the work of musicians.
