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đ„ Oops (A)I did it again...
Plus: Channel 4 looks to podcast for UK election coverage
Oli Thomas
May 28, 2024
đ€ Another rollercoaster of a week for Open AI
đș Netflix releases 2nd batch of viewing data
đș Snoop Dogg kicks off merch auction
đïž The Rest is Politics to launch on Channel 4
đ§ Baby Reindeer raises more questions about Netflix docs
If youâre a âglass half emptyâ person, right now youâre probably worrying about when robots are going to take over the world. If youâre a âglass half fullâ person, youâre probably looking forward to a world where every tedious task is taken care of and human creativity can run wild and free.
(I tend to be on the empty side but where robots are concerned Iâm surprisingly optimistic).
Whether you like it or not, the rise of AI is going to impact everything and the shakedown is not going to be an easy ride.
And so this week proved to be a tough one for Open AI. Not only did they manage to p*ss off Scarlett Johansson and further crank open the Pandoraâs Box around the âright of publicityâ, but they also seemingly managed to p*ss off their own staff too.
The creative industry is definitely going to continue to find itself in the eye of the storm. After all, training LLMs to perform administrative tasks is much less controversial than creating content which may borrow from existing human creativity, image or audio rights.
The exciting space to occupy is slap bang in the middle - and there are plenty of startups looking at how they can be the mediator for legitimately lending (and monetising) these rights.
Vamos đ
A big week for Open AI
The good: Signed a deal with News Corp to make use of articles from WSJ, New York Post, The Times and more to train their LLMs.
The bad: Locked in legal battles with with publishers (NYT), writers (George R R Martin) and comedians (Sarah Silverman) around the fact they used their copyrighted material to train their LLMs. OpenAI have always denied the accusations. But when they released their new voices for GPT-4 many couldnât help but notice the similarities between âSkyâ and the voice from the 2014 film âHerâ, voiced by Scarlett Johansson.
OpenAI quickly suspended the voice. Theyâve since released the early recordings of the actual human voice involved as proof they didnât clone Scarlett J.
The ugly: More news about staff unrest and the company being âon the brink of civil warâ as insiders question the principles and ethics of the organisation.
This is very much the thin end of the wedge. Expect lots more legal cases to come.
Read more here
One Piece leads the Netflix charts
Youâd have been hard-pushed to not hear about Netflixâs second report on viewing released last week - theyâve managed to create a Glastonbury-esque fever to this data amongst industry insiders.
And it did deliver some interesting insights.
The #1 show in H2 2023 was One Piece - an 8 ep live action series based on a 1,000 episode anime series. A neat commission by Netflix - straight out of the content strategy 101 playbook - taking IP with a long-lived and hardcore following in a niche segment (manga/anime) and bringing it to mainstream, global audiences.
In the kids space, CocoMelon is miles ahead of anything else - with 200M views across all seasons, vs just 90M for the next biggest kids franchise (Gabbyâs Dollhouse).
And - illustrating the increasing importance of international - non-English language content made up one third of all viewing.
Read more here
Source: Netflix
The Dogg-y in the window
Weâre used to see talent launching new products, but what about selling old products?
Auctioning artist memorabilia is nothing new. But Snoop Dogg has partnered up with The Realist - a new specialist auction house set up to provide a more authenticated and secure way for trading artist collectibles - to take control of this and do it in a more scaled way.
This could prove a solid new revenue stream and a fruitful way for talent to keep selling on clothing and items that theyâre using throughout their daily livesâŠits like A-list upcyclingâŠ
Read more here
Source: The Realest
The Rest isâŠChannel 4
The Rest is Politics is the jewel in the crown of the âRest isâŠâ podcast portfolio, regularly topping the UK charts and spinning out viral vids across social.
And now it has partnered with C4 for a weekly broadcast leading up to the election on the 4th July.
Its surprising how few podcasts have made this jump, with the only other tie-up on a UK PSB being the Diary of a CEO on iPlayer.
As broadcasters look for more low-cost, repeatable programming with ready-made audiences, and podcasters increasingly record video alongside the audio, you can expect more of this to come.
Read more here
The Case of Baby Reindeer
Winner of the âno sh*t sherlockâ news of the week is that some of the Netflix âtrue crimeâ docs may not actually be all that true.
The big question here is the impact of those who are the subjects of these docs, particularly where they have been unfairly represented.
What this also shows is that traditional regulations are going to start catching up with Netflix - for years its been able to operate in a grey area re. broadcast rules and compliance, but with great power comes great responsibilityâŠand so there is going to be more and more scrutiny on their programming going forward.
Read more here