Thousands of NZ songs in AI training datasets, and other news

Songs by Lorde, WHO SHOT SCOTT, Rhian Sheehan, The Beths, Alien Weaponry, Beastwars, Split Enz, Stan Walker, Aaradhna, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Crowded House, Tami Neilson, Neil Finn, Marlon Williams, Bic Runga, Fat Freddy’s Drop, Dave Dobbyn, SIX60, Katchafire, The Black Seeds, Reb Fountain, Aldous Harding, Vera Ellen, Princess Chelsea, Troy Kingi, Benee, Shihad, The Mint Chicks, Kaylee Bell, Scribe, P-Money, Nesian Mystik, Che Fu, MELODOWNZ, Fazerdaze, The Chills and in fact just about every New Zealand musician I can think of, are in a set of four giant datasets of songs that have been shared with AI developers as resources to train generative AI. 

The datasets have more than 20 million tracks, including songs by international superstars like Bad Bunny and Taylor Swift, but also by indie musicians like Vera Ellen, who just two weeks ago was holding back tears while preparing for a show in Paris because a fedex package full of vinyl couldn't be located, and she didn't know how she would pay for the tour without being able to sell vinyl.

A tool, AI Watchdog, has been created by US-based online magazine The Atlantic, so that datasets of materials like books, music, articles, and movies provided to AI developers for training, can be searched. Type in your own name, or that of your favourite artist, to see if their work has been included. The presence of a work is not definitive proof it has been used, but it’s close. The journalist who found them, Alex Reisner, says the datasets have been downloaded thousands of times. Neither are the databases included complete training materials of any AI – there is almost certainly more we don’t know about. The industry is extremely secretive around training data, and sometimes claims to use only content freely available online. The scale of the datasets reveals just how much is available to them, without the knowledge, consent, or permission of the people who have made it.

“AI ripping off a lifetime of creative work in the form of a song and capitalising on that in some way is not a surprise,” says Reb Fountain. “It’s consistent with the current model for monetising music.” She says that music income has already been co-opted by billionaire tech companies, and while musicians are often forced to subsist on less than legal wages, the industry is structured so that other workers make decent salaries. Still, she thinks the use of AI generated content is a threat to musicians' incomes, and perhaps worse, undermines the “act of creation, of reflection and critical thinking… a wondrous and precious gift”. She is disheartened that governments continue to “enable the dismantling and devaluing of the very aspects of our humanity that have potential to bring joy, affect change, cultivate community and create possibilities that could literally save us… as the oligarchs who control them aim to harness the power of our human soul and both take over and usurp our human expression”.

Luke Buda, who makes music with The Phoenix Foundation, Moniker, Teeth, and under his own name, isn’t surprised either. Having been around in the music industry since the 1990s, he has seen the “dismantling of the old music industry, and I guess in some ways, it just keeps getting worse for musicians and there's just less and less money.” Over time he has seen the money made from music go upwards into fewer and fewer hands. With AI, “it’s amazing, they've finally found a tool that can just completely screw over everyone. It's just another way to siphon more money away from musicians.”

There is one thing he simply does not understand. Why anyone would want to use AI to generate music in the first place. “Listening to AI music – it's never going to have the things that I need from music personally, like charming naivety, a sweetness, or some righteous rage, or any joy, or any pain, or anything at all – even at the very least, listening to someone who's very technically competent and understanding that that took years and years of work and dedication… It's got nothing. It's completely empty. I'd rather listen to 100 four-year-olds playing the recorder, to be honest. I'd volunteer a tribute to listen to that – I will listen to it for as long as I have to, so that generative AI music goes away.”

Overseas, major lawsuits have been filed against AI companies for their use of copyright materials for training. AI companies have defended their right to train models on existing content by arguing that it is “fair use” under copyright law, because it does not harm the market for creators’ work. In a US case where Anthropic had used copyrighted books for training, a federal judge ruled in favour of this argument. This means copyright owners could not object nor get paid for the use of their copyright-protected material. Anthropic had to pay a settlement only because some of the books had been pirated (illegally obtained). Critics may say that applying the law in this way is symptomatic of tech companies' ways of working, that is: Move fast and break things. It works especially well when legal and policy frameworks have not yet caught up with technological developments, as has often been the case with AI. Two major music lawsuits, filed by Warner and Universal, have resulted in settlements and both labels have since initiated licensing talks with AI developers. These turns make the habit of AI consuming everything seem like an encroaching inevitability.

Here in Aotearoa, our copyright laws have not yet been updated to consider AI, so there are no clear protections. “AI raises complex questions about how copyright law applies to training and what obligations developers have to rights holders,” says Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Cameron Brewer. “Existing copyright law still applies, and creators may have avenues to act where their rights are infringed, though this is still being tested in litigation overseas.” He says the government is currently monitoring developments related to GenAI and AI issues more broadly, and he will be presenting a possible copyright framework for generative AI to cabinet by 31 March next year. Two examples he brings up are Japan, where a text and data mining copyright exception is permitting AI to train tools without authorisation from a copyright owner; and the EU, which has instated copyright exceptions that allow copyright owners to “opt out” of their works being used.

Wellington-based composer and producer Rhian Sheehan, who has found a significant proportion of his catalogue, including his albums, scores for films, media and TV projects in the datasets, says that in his YouTube Studio, the setting 'Allow third-party companies to train AI models using my channel content' is turned off, and he has not given permission to any digital distributors either. “Artists deserve transparency and the ability to decide whether their work is used to train AI systems,” he says. What worries Sheehan the most is that music by independent artists has been swept up alongside that of major artists. “The biggest artists and labels may have the resources to challenge this, but many independent musicians and small labels simply don't. There's a real imbalance there.”

Last year the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, highlighted the importance of fair attribution and compensation for the creators of copyright works in a paper giving guidance on responsible use of AI for business. Professor Graeme Austin at the law faculty of Victoria University of Wellington thinks that a licensing system could be a fair way to regulate how AI companies use copyrighted material, and copyright owners would get paid. 

“We are ready to license. We know how to do it. We have been doing it for over 100 years,” says Dean Ormston, Chief Executive APRA AMCOS, “but it has to be a real licensing framework, not a carve-out dressed up as a compromise”. APRA AMCOS's AI and Music Report found that without a mandatory licensing framework, Australian and New Zealand songwriters and composers face a 23 per cent hit to their revenues. “Major tech platforms have not come to the table. Not once. Instead they have lobbied governments, circulated policy papers, and proposed solutions designed to extinguish any obligation to pay,” says Ormston. “The only path forward is a genuine licensing conversation with the people whose work they have been using. We are ready. We have always been ready. The question is whether they are.”

K’ Road closures sadden music community

Last Thursday two announcements left Auckland’s music community reeling. First independent record shop Flying Out, part of the fabric of Karangahape Road since 2013, announced its immediate closure, citing “an unpleasant, perfect storm” consisting of the pandemic, festival cancellations, ongoing road and CRL works, and the economic downturn. Later that day Neck of the Woods, a venue less than 200 metres away, announced that after 11 years there was no other option other than to close its doors this week. The venue said that it's been struggling since Covid, and “this year has just gotten harder”. Although the venue hosts plenty of sold-out shows, much of its revenue comes from bar sales, and people have been drinking and spending less. 

Nymph Ltd, a group of artists and promoters that have worked with Neck of the Woods subsequently set up a fundraising drive for $150,000 – which is nearing its target ($122,236 had been raised by Wednesday afternoon). While there is some debt to pay off, the bigger purpose is to set up the venue in a way that is sustainable and does not rely so heavily on bar sales. It will be interesting to see if and how this can be done without investment from the council or government. At heart, the problem our underground music venues face is that they’re treated like hospitality businesses rather than cultural infrastructure. If you want to know what three experts think Auckland’s grassroots venues need right now, Rosetta Stone has asked them just that for an article we published on Tuesday. 

Historic Imperial House reopens as venue for hire in Auckland

The Victorian-era Category 2-listed building on Fort Lane has reopened and is being run by events company Nothing Ordinary Here. Imperial House offers five distinctive spaces designed to host everything from product launches to live music performances, album releases, corporate functions, and bespoke private events. Mark Pickering, who is joining as director of strategy and commercial, says “I've seen firsthand what great events do for a city, and I can't wait to unleash that energy in Auckland's CBD”. He says it has an “incredible stage for the musicians and promoters who need it most right now”. But it is a premium offering – I’m curious to see who will be able to host things there, and the balance between corporate, private, and cultural events.

New Zealand Opera wins award for accessibility technology

At the Parnell Business Innovation Awards last week, New Zealand Opera (headquartered in Parnell) won the Positive Change Award, recognising the company’s sector-leading initiative, Live Language Access: Reimagining Opera Through Inclusive Technology. The tool allows audience members to scan a QR code and then stream live translations – including in braille, English, Simplified Chinese and Italian – on their smartphones or braille devices. It was a world first in 2024 by enabling Braille readers to read sung text simultaneously with the performance. New Zealand Opera plans to use the prize money to assist with expanding the languages offered to include te reo Māori, Samoan and Korean.

Pōneke Festival of Contemporary Dance returns for third year with new partners

The festival, produced by Footnote New Zealand Dance, was previously presented with Te Auaha, which closed at the end of 2025. The new partners are Wellington City Council’s artist hubs The Hannah Playhouse and Toi Aro. For just one week at the start of July, artists from Aotearoa and beyond will perform in the capital – expect shows, artists in residence, free events, parties, debates, and a fostering of community.

New Voices of Aotearoa 2026 announced

The Coalition for Books have announced eight authors “showing readers where literature is headed next,” says chair Melanie Laville Moore. New Voices highlights authors who have already demonstrated early commercial and critical success across fiction, poetry and non-fiction. Last year the programme was a commercial success for the selected authors – in the 12 weeks after the announcement, data showed a 69% average increase of book sales of the authors’ debuts, compared to the 12 weeks before.

This year the New Voices of Aotearoa are: Ōtaki-based writer and public servant Tīhema Baker (Raukawa te Au ki te Tonga, Ātiawa ki Whakarongotai, Ngāti Toa Rangatira); Auckland-based poet and storyteller Amber Esau (Ngāpuhi, Manase); Hastings award-winning poet and storyteller Nafanua Purcell Kersel (Satupa‘itea, Faleālupo, Aleipata, Tuaefu); Auckland-based te reo Māori journalist and author Dr Atakohu Middleton (Waikato, Pākehā); bestselling Scottish-New Zealand crime writer Zoë Rankin; US-New Zealand forager, fungi enthusiast and bestselling author Liv Sisson; #1 bestselling novelist Jennifer Trevelyan; and Christchurch academic and historian Dr Madi Williams (Ngāti Kuia, Ngāti Kōata, Ngāti Apa ki te Rā Tō, Rangitāne o Wairau).

Estuary Art and Ecology Awards finalists announced

The awards, run by East Auckland’s creative hub UXBRIDGE, are recognised as Aotearoa’s only contemporary art awards dedicated to ecological themes and have been running for 20 years. Artists are invited to respond to the plight of the Tāmaki Estuary, a waterway that is under threat due to pollution from the industrial areas that have been built around it. 

All finalists take part in an exhibition in Malcolm Smith Gallery opening on 4 July, with award winners announced that evening. The finalists are: Amber Adams, Anna Agoston, Tony Clarke, Charli De Koning, Amanda Densham, Matt Dowman, Wendy Hannah, Rowan Holt, Yolanda Huang, Tim Larkin, Rose Lee, Penny Lin, Thomas Lord, Minke Lupa, Paul McLachlan, Fiona Newton, Greg Nunes, Isla Osbourne, Kurt Payne, Rubes Prattley-Jones, Jessie Randles and Damian Stones.

Winners announced for Peace Project songwriting competition

The Peace Project encourages young people to use songwriting as a way to respond to the times they are living in and contribute something meaningful. Play It Strange received 171 original song entries from secondary school students, and Cameron Beattie from Long Bay College took out top place for his song ‘The Sun On The Hill’. The multiple-time Play It Strange finalist says, “all of the Play It Strange team have been so awesome and the opportunities they have provided me and so many others over the years means so much”.

Cameron receives a prize package including a one-on-one mentoring session, a $500 MusicWorks voucher, a JBL Bandbox Trio, and an artist development session with SOLE Music Academy founder Sacha Vee. Second place was awarded to Earl Legasto for his song ‘overgrown garden’, and third place went to Salem Māhia for ‘A Song About Flowers’. 60 finalist songs have been selected for professional recording in studios across Aotearoa.

Finalists for 2026 Pacific Music Awards announced

The awards recognise 33 finalists over 13 categories. Several artists are nominated in multiple categories – A.R.T and Sam V have five nominations each, Scribe and Ladi6 each have four nominations, and Iva Lamkum, Junior Soqeta, Tree and Three Houses Down, each pick up three. Winners will be announced at the 2026 Pacific Music Awards on 12 August at Due Drop Events Centre in Manukau. Here’s who is in the running:

Auckland Council Best Pacific Female Artist
Iva Lamkum, Kenzie From Welly, Ladi6, LOU'ANA, Talia Perese, Tree

NZ Music Commission Best Pacific Male Artist
Junior Soqeta, Lepani, MELODOWNZ, RNZŌ, Sam V, Scribe

Flava Best Pacific Group                
A.R.T, Brotherhood Musiq, Signature Choir, Three Houses Down, Village 90

Pacific Media Network Best Pacific Language
A.R.T, GLEN JXN JACKSON, Junior Soqeta, Taonepuna Lakatani, Malcolm Lakatani & Pacific Kids Learning, Tree

531pi Best Pacific Gospel Artist
Brotherhood Musiq, Punialava'a, Signature Choir, Tree

ONErpm Best Pacific Hip Hop Artist
Diggy Dupé & choicevaughan, Kenzie From Welly, MELODOWNZ, Scribe

Best Pacific Soul/RnB Artist
A.R.T, Ladi6, Myshaan, Sam V

Best Pacific Roots/Reggae Artist
Fejoint, Switch.E & Folau, Island Vibes, Junior Soqeta, SHANE WALKER, Three Houses Down 

APRA Best Pacific Song
Island Vibes – ‘Tonga Tu Ketau Tue’, Iva Lamkum – ‘Don't Mind If I Do’, Lepani – ‘Young Gun’, Sam V – ‘Small Taste’, Scribe – ‘Glowstick’

NZ On Air Best Pacific Music Video
A.R.T – ‘Over Now’, Brandn Shiraz – ‘Youngin from Kuki II’, Iva Lamkum – ‘Don't Mind If I Do’, Shepherds Reign – ‘Samoa Mo Samoa’, Three Houses Down – ‘Turn Around’, Vallé – ‘Hold Me’

MPG Aotearoa/SAE Creative Media Institute Best Producer
Brent Park-Tamati & Brandon Haru; EDY, Astro, Sam V; Josh Fountain; Nathan Judd

Recorded Music NZ Te Tino Pukaemi Moana Nui a Kiwa o te Tau | Best Pacific Music Album
A.R.T – Blank Canvas, Ladi6 – Le Vā, Sam V – Take A Chance On V: Deluxe, Scribe – Scribe is Dead

NIU FM Best International Pacific Artist
Etu, Fiji, JAHBOY, Jaro Local, Wameblood

Jacqui Coats new administrator for Wellington Theatre Awards Trust 

Wellington Theatre Awards Trust Ngā Whakarākei O Whātaitai has appointed Jacqueline Coats as its new administrator – she will be responsible for supporting the trust in organising and presenting the annual awards. A proud graduate of Victoria University Wellington Te Herenga Waka and Toi Whakaari NZ Drama School, she has worked with many of the capital’s arts organisations as a director and producer. Trust chair Peter Dengate Thrush says, “the trustees are delighted to have secured the services of someone as experienced and well-connected with Wellington theatre as Jacqui in this important role.”

Rosetta Stone talks to Chlöe Swarbrick, Taylor MacGregor and Savina Fountain about the future of music infrastructure in Auckland.

Remember when I went to Shanghai in March? I have reflected on what it was like to see NZ artists on a global stage, and my surprise by the similar concerns echoed in contemporary Chinese art.

If you weren’t able to see the Bill Manhire session at the Auckland Writers Festival, now you can see it online! The wide-ranging session was hosted by Fergus Barrowman, and other great minds Elizabeth Knox, Ian Wedde, Norman Meehan, Emily Perkins, and Anna Rawhiti-Connell reflected on his extraordinary life.