I couldn't get the topic out of my head and wanted to know a few more facts. Here are some of the results:

Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed, but according to the Financial Times, which cited a person familiar with the matter, the deal is worth about USD $50 million. The acquisition marks Splice’s entry into the plugin sector, which it notes is valued at $640 million, and aligns with its existing subscription and rent-to-own businesses.

The move positions Splice to capitalize on the growing music creation market, forecast (by Midia Research) to nearly double to $14 billion by 2031. Founded in 2013, New York-based Splice generates more than $100 million in annual revenue with about 600,000 paying subscribers, sources told the FT.

The company was valued at nearly $500 million in a 2021 funding round led by Goldman Sachs and entrepreneur Matt Pincus’s investment firm MUSIC. Source: www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/splice-acquires-spitfire-audio-for-a-reported-50m-as-it-bets-on-ai-music-creation/

 

In your response, you are obviously overlooking a key perspective: the role of producers' and art directors' mentality in the acceptance of AI, whether in the music, advertising, or film industries.

The issue is not just the advancement of technology but rather the mindset of decision-makers. If art directors are willing to replace musical compositions with AI-generated solutions to cut costs, it means that the demand for human-made music is already being compromised. Pay attention here: This shift does not happen merely because technology evolves, but because people accept and even push this substitution forward for financial gain. With this logic, Splice (or another loop company that buys, for example, 8DIO) could indeed explore and even develop an AI model not to eliminate its own products, but because the market may be gradually demanding this type of technology (contracted services). If many art directors and producers conceptualize music as merely a background sound with a mood and do not care whether it is composed by AI, then a massive database of automatically generated tracks could be precisely what they are looking for.

Another contradiction in your argument: If Splice sells the idea that the "right sounds" are the key to musical success, the same principle could be applied to AI (which collects user data based on what appeals to them). AI could learn to choose the "right sounds" and assemble them automatically (statistically). Instead of weakening its business, Splice could restructure its strategy and sell AI-based services, offering neural networks that use only the best samples available (which it sells itself, whether from Spitfire or the recycled loops it produces—and why not merge both?). The risk lies not only in technology but in how it is adopted and legitimized by people who shape the industry. If major producers accept AI-generated music without restrictions, the question is not "if" traditional composition will disappear but "when" it will happen. Again, many people are not paying attention to this.

 

Hello @Mynock, it also depends on the country in which you, as a producer/AI user, have to comply with applicable copyright laws.
I think the heyday of film music composers is slowly coming to an end. AI will likely be faster and cheaper and slowly displace traditional methods over the years. In the end, AI will be the standard. 5-20 years!

The question I ask myself is, how can AI replace film music writers like Hans Zimmer, for example? How does that work in practice, since Mr. Zimmer sits in front of the film and then selects the appropriate instruments...?

Protected works within the meaning of copyright law are only the personal intellectual creations of a human being. Purely AI-based content therefore does not enjoy copyright protection, as the AI's workings are beyond the user's control.

 

Last edited: May 5, 2025 at 2:37 PM

In the end, AI will be the standard. 5-20 years!



Well, you raised interesting points 'cos, currently, AI can generate music based on pre-existing patterns (massive databases and statistical models), but it still lacks the subjective perception of a work as a human composer does (emotional depth and innovation are still elements that are difficult to replicate authentically).
Regarding the legal aspect, current legislation recognizes only human intellectual creations as protected, meaning that purely AI-generated music would not have legal protection (yet). For now, human talent remains irreplaceable, but WHEN directors and producers start seeing AI as a more viable, profitable, and an ok-quality-level alternative, the transition could happen faster than expected (including legal changes: countries may, in the future, revise their laws to adapt to this emerging reality, creating new rules for attributing authorship in hybrid compositions [human + AI]).
I see people excited about AI, but when I think about this specific issue we're discussing, I see a very uncertain and dangerous path ahead.

 

Who would have thought 20 years ago that the smartphone would be used everywhere and by almost everyone? When you go to the bank, you employ an employee to count money; if you have an online account, you relieve the bank employees and become an employee yourself. The catch is, the bank will never tell you that.

A company will always present itself in a positive light. People who report critically about it are rare, and tomorrow, new news will come along and the old news will be forgotten. We are already shaped by the internet, and the digital age is advancing; everything that can be done technically will be done. Due to competition from abroad alone, if Elon Musk changes something in America, the laws will be changed – always to the advantage of the respective country. America versus China – China versus America.

This is clearly evident in AI. I think @Mynock, you also understand copyright law, and you'll probably just spend a few million, buy it from the authors, and then use it to train your AI. Or they go to music universities and spend cash so they can build and train their AI with the students. There's plenty of money, but investors want to see a return at some point.

It's a crystal ball gazing exercise, which, as you said, doesn't evoke any positive feelings about the future.
We know people too well for that.

 

You're absolutely right.
I dug a little deeper and found the business figures for the last few years.
They didn't look good at all.
As a result, the data analyst said Spitfire was DECLINING and that's probably true.

You can see the (depressing) numbers in the spoiler of my previous post...
If the owners had not sold, it would probably have been even worse.

 

Last edited: May 5, 2025 at 4:40 PM

To reflect:

Talking about this subject with a friend who was a cybersecurity programmer (worked for almost 25 years and retired to dedicate himself to music), I shared this conversation here on the forum, and as we reflected, we realized that we are reaching a historic inflection point. I will transcribe his words because I believe they are truly worth considering:

❝The advancement of these artificial intelligences that generate music based on convincingly emotional atmospheres in seconds is silently eroding the pillars of professional music production as we know them. With algorithms trained on millions of works, these AIs are already capable of composing, mixing, mastering, and even adapting styles to individual listener preferences, optimizing for playlists, emotions, and engagement in real time. And the most disturbing part: without needing to sleep, eat, or negotiate fees.

Even worse, tools like Suno, Udio, Aiva, and others are being fed with the creations of human producers—without consent—to become their definitive replacements. In other words, every human-made beat is fueling the system that will ultimately eliminate the craft that created it.

I shared my perspective as a former developer with my brother, who is a lawyer specializing in copyright law, and I realized that legally, the loopholes are glaring. Copyright frameworks are still stuck in 20th-century paradigms, where authorship implied intention, effort, and subjectivity. But artificial intelligence has no intention—it merely executes. The problem is that these executions are already, at times, nearly indistinguishable from human works. And since the "author" is not a legal entity but a system, capital and big tech companies end up with all the rights. The result: an industry driven by empty simulations of creativity, generating billions of dollars for those who control the data.

Moreover, the ethical issue is even more alarming. Human creativity—the process that emerges from pleasure, pain, experience, and artistic transcendence—is being reduced to statistics and consumption predictions. The music producer, historically a craftsman of sound, a sculptor of atmospheres and sonic narratives, is gradually being turned into a spectator of his own demise.

I believe that if nothing is done urgently, the role of music producer will become obsolete by 2030. What will remain is a market saturated with synthetic music, molded by artificial intelligence to go viral in 15 seconds on TikTok, yet completely devoid of soul, memory, and meaning. Culture will silently collapse, buried beneath an infinite noise of content programmed to generate clicks rather than touch souls and awaken subjective consciousness.

I might be wrong, but perhaps the solution to this problem needs to be as radical as necessary. I believe a regulatory body must establish clear legal and ethical limits, such as: 1) no AI should be fed with human content without the artist/producer's consent, agreed upon through fair compensation; 2) Urgently implement a new universal mandatory licensing system with blockchain tracking and algorithmic transparency clauses; 3) Update copyright laws to recognize and protect not just the work itself but the human creative intention, or we will witness the greatest cultural theft in history.

Additionally, 4) artists and producers should form autonomous creative cooperatives, with record labels that refuse to use AI-based tools trained without authorization. Creating 100% human music will, paradoxically, become the new luxury—a form of resistance.

The industry also needs to invest in critical education about artificial intelligence, training not just technology operators but producers who master AI yet consciously choose to use it as a tool rather than a substitute in human-driven music production. The future of music depends on an ethical pact between art and machine—or an inevitable war between consciousness and automation—because time is running out.

So I see that the moment to decide whether music will continue to be an expression of the human soul or merely an algorithmic byproduct is now. And this decision does not belong to artificial intelligence. It should belong to us, human beings. If it's not this, I don't know what else it will be.❞

 

Last edited: May 6, 2025 at 5:02 AM