On Wednesday, March 15, Billboard editor Taylor Mims moderated a panel at SXSW that discussed the touring industry’s post-pandemic status. Featuring panelists Sara Mertz (VP of music partnerships at Tixr), Liz Norris (manager at Activist Artists Management) and Sarah Tehrani (music touring agent at WME), the panelists voiced concerns about saturation on the road, rising touring costs and the increase in specialized live experiences.

Mertz recalled how as quarantine restrictions lifted and tickets went back on sale, there was “lots of excitement” and a massive rush back to get back the road. But then the industry was then hit with subsequent variants, leading to cancellations en masse. “What we’ve been experiencing the last few years is a pendulum,” she explained.

And while Tehrani added that she has hopes for the industry to level out next year — for which agents at WME are already booking now — Norris explained that “nothing will be the exact same as it was in 2019,” given consumer behavior has changed over the last few years, along with other factors.

“People want a more specialized, curated experience than ever,” said Tehrani. “Rather than these big, throw-everything-at-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks festivals that are focused on going and discovering new music, we’re seeing more interest in boutique festivals.” For example, music fans seem more interested, in Tehrani’s approximation, to see a one-day legacy hip-hop festival than ever, and meanwhile larger-scale, broad appeal festivals are struggling to get the same sales as they once did.

Some artists Tehrani works with, like R&B singer-songwriter UMI, have even tried incorporating new elements to make their tours stand out, like adding in a meditation practice offered as a VIP experience at her shows to boost fan engagement and spread her passion for wellness.

Such experiences are becoming more crucial as the cost of touring continues to rise with inflation — and as a result of cutbacks on positions like bus drivers and sound engineers — leaving consumers to be pickier about which shows they attend.

But still, this strategy is challenged by a high no-show rate. “Attrition remains an issue,” said Mertz. “I don’t know what it is. I was just meeting with a couple of clients last night and they’re like, ‘We don’t understand it, at our sold-out shows, still 20-25% of people are not showing up. Why?’”

In 2021 the issue was attributed to lingering pandemic concerns, but now one of the only explanations the panelists provided was the possibility of increasingly cunning scalpers. “I do think that scalper activity has increased a lot over the last few years,” said Mertz. “It’s a business now.”

For Norris, whose management firm represents Dead & Company, Michael Franti, and the Lumineers, she said one of the industry’s most pressing concerns is “to do a lot of work to make sure the fans aren’t the ones that pay the price” of today’s higher touring costs.

At the same time, the panelists did identify some positive changes that have emerged in live music over the last few years. “Mental health is now at the forefront,” said Norris.

“Having a therapist and physical therapists on the road is new,” added Tehrani. “We’ve always had vocal coaches and stuff like that, but people are definitely thinking about how to take better care of each other. That’s a very good thing”

A new policy report from the U.S. Copyright Office says that songs and other artistic works created with the assistance of artificial intelligence can sometimes be eligible for copyright registration, but only if the ultimate author remains a human being.

The report, released by the federal agency on Wednesday (March 15), comes amid growing interest in the future role that could be played in the creation of music by so-called generative AI tools — similar to the much-discussed ChatGPT.

Copyright protection is strictly limited to content created by humans, leading to heated debate over the status of AI-generated works. In a closely-watched case last month, the Copyright Office decided that a graphic novel featuring AI-generated images was eligible for protection, but that the individual images couldn’t be protected.

In Wednesday’s report, the agency said that the use of AI tools was not an automatic ban on copyright registration, but that it would be closely scrutinized and could not play a dominant role in the creative process.

“If a work’s traditional elements of authorship were produced by a machine, the work lacks human authorship and the Office will not register it,” the agency wrote. “For example, when an AI technology receives solely a prompt from a human and produces complex written, visual, or musical works in response, the traditional elements of authorship are determined and executed by the technology — not the human user.”

The report listed examples of AI-aided works that might still be worthy of protection, like one that creatively combined AI-generated elements into something new, or a work that was AI-generated that an artist then heavily modified after the fact. And it stressed that other technological tools were still fair game.

“A visual artist who uses Adobe Photoshop to edit an image remains the author of the modified image, and a musical artist may use effects such as guitar pedals when creating a sound recording,” the report said. “In each case, what matters is the extent to which the human had creative control over the work’s expression and ‘actually formed’ the traditional elements of authorship.”

Under the rules laid out in the report, the Copyright Office said that anyone submitting such works must disclose which elements were created by AI and which were created by a human. The agency said that any AI-inclusive work that was previously registered without such a disclosure must be updated — and that failure to do so could result in the cancellation of the copyright registration.

Though aimed at providing guidance, Wednesday’s report avoided hard-and-fast rules. It stressed that analyzing copyright protection for AI-assisted works would be “necessarily a case-by-case inquiry,” and that the final outcome would always depend on individual circumstances, including “how the AI tool operates” and “how it was used to create the final work.”

And the report didn’t even touch on a potentially thornier legal question: whether the creators of AI platforms infringe the copyrights of the vast number of earlier works that are used to “train” the platforms to spit out new works. In October, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) warned that such providers were violating copyrights en masse by using existing music to train their machines.

“To the extent these services, or their partners, are training their AI models using our members’ music, that use is unauthorized and infringes our members’ rights by making unauthorized copies of our members works,” the RIAA said at the time.

Though Wednesday’s report did not offer guidance on that question, the Copyright Office said it had plans to weigh in soon.

“[The Office] has launched an agency-wide initiative to delve into a wide range of these issues,” the agency wrote. “Among other things, the Office intends to publish a notice of inquiry later this year seeking public input on additional legal and policy topics, including how the law should apply to the use of copyrighted works in AI training and the resulting treatment of outputs.”

Read the entire report here:

To celebrate EXO member KAI dropping his latest solo album Rover, nearly all his band members came together for a light-hearted reaction viewing of his new music video.

For the first time together in years — after different members handled their mandatory Southern Korean military service from 2019 to 2023 — EXO’s Suho, Baekhyun, Chen, Chanyeol, D.O, Xiumin, Sehun and KAI gathered as eight to review KAI’s new single, gain some insight from their bandmate, and tease upcoming EXO music.

Despite being active with solo albums and special releases, EXO has not released music together as a whole group (which includes ninth member Lay, who is currently active in China) since 2018 with their sixth studio album, Don’t Mess Up My Tempo, which became their highest-charting entry on the Billboard 200 when it peaked at No. 23.

Despite the friendly viewing, KAI admitted his nerves and how it was the first time watching one of his solo music videos with his members. “I feel so nervous,” he shared. “It feels like an evaluation session. It feels really odd.”

Yet his band mates showered KAI with compliments on his dancing (Xiumin said, “I love that choreography”), single choice (“The song is so good,” commented D.O), and future success with “Rover” (Chanyeol said, “This should make it to the Billboard charts”).

After applauding at the end, several EXO members shared additional reviews.

“First of all, I really like the style of the song,” youngest member Sehun said. “The choreography is good. I think the producing was great too. Everyone agrees, right?”

Chen added, “From what we’ve seen from KAI before, we know he’s a great performer but from this music video, I was also able to see more of KAI as a person, like his acting, the whole atmosphere. I think it’s fair to say I could feel that he’s matured more. I could see a more manly side.”

“I loved it because it seemed like you relaxed more,” Baekhyun, a member of SuperM with KAI, said. “You went for less. I liked how I could tell you did that.”

Chanyeol even suggested that the guys “make this an EXO song” and “choose this as our next song,” a tease for their highly anticipated comeback album together. KAI shared that he “actually really mentioned that” suggestion before Chanyeol brushed off the idea and countered that “only KAI can pull this off.”

Before the video ends, EXO leader Suho shared a heartfelt message while asking fans to support KAI’s new music: “We, EXO, will always be rooting for him by his side as well.”

Watch the full reaction video for why KAI chose to shorten his new single, different movie and dance inspirations in the visual, and more from the EXO members.