Been scrolling through the Udio subreddit reading everyone's takes on the UMG deal, and it's honestly heartbreaking. The anti-AI crowd is celebrating the Universal settlement like they won something, but they're completely blind to who actually got hurt here.
Hobbyists who made music for pure joy. Disabled people who finally had an accessible way to create. But especially the ones nobody's talking about - former musicians who can't physically play or sing anymore, and older folks who just wanted to express themselves musically again. All of them just lost their outlet with 48 hours notice.
Here's what kills me - this isn't a victory for artists. When has giving Universal Music MORE control over creativity ever helped anyone? They didn't protect musicians, they just replaced an indie tool with corporate gatekeeping. Now we get a "licensed streaming-only" model where a major label decides what you can and can't do with your own creations.
And let's be real - most of us with actual musical skills are just gonna go back to doing whatever we were doing before. But if you care SO much about copyright and protecting artists, why aren't any of these anti-AI people building their own solutions? All I see is folks hiding behind computer screens talking crap without offering anything constructive and blocking people like a child.
Deleting something don't make anything. Everyone's cheering while real people lose access to creativity they built. We traded accessibility for corporate control and somehow that's supposed to be progress.
We all lost here.