Montana governor signs pro-cryptocurrency mining bill into lawThe legislation includes revisions to laws aimed at prohibiting discriminatory electrical rates for mining firms and not allowing taxation for crypto used as a method of payment.

Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs and Warner Music Group CEO Robert Kyncl join Board of Trustees at The Paley Center for MediaThe Paley Center is described as 'the entertainment industry's leading nonprofit dedicated to celebrating the cultural, creative, and social significance of media and its impact on society'
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Persona and Index Ventures talk identity, and identifying a good dealIdentity management used to mean making sure you had your driver’s license when you left the house, but these days it’s not so easy: Identity fundamentally underpins how we engage with the digital world, and identity services can take on many forms (and, unfortunately, abuses). I’m excited to host a TechCrunch Live event with Persona co-founder and CEO Rick Song, one of the early movers in the space, about how his company identified ID management as an opportunity.
This TechCrunch Live event takes place on Wednesday, May 10, 2023, at 12:00 p.m. PDT. Register here for Hopin access, where viewers can ask questions and network with other attendees.
Along with Rick, Index Venture’s Mark Goldberg is speaking at the event, too. Mark made a prescient move to spot and back Persona during its Series B fundraise and backed the company again for its $150 million Series C.
Rick Song co-founded Persona with Charles Yeh in 2018, and according to PitchBook, the company’s valuation is $1.5 billion as of Persona’s Series C in 2021. Since its founding, the company’s goal has remained the same: provide users with a verification system to protect and secure identity from theft and fraud. The company raised a Series B in 2021 after seeing revenues jump 20x while users increased 5x. In late 2022, Persona introduced new services, expanding beyond identify verification with the launch of à la carte tools, including a risk assessment engine, an identity workflow tool, a graph database aimed at link analysis and fraud detection, and a marketplace for external developers to help connect their business tools to Persona’s identity tools.
I hope you can join this TechCrunch Live event. Rick and Mark are set to provide actionable insights on how companies can better protect users, and how founders, building such services, can stand out among their competitors.
REGISTER HERE FOR FREE
Persona and Index Ventures talk identity, and identifying a good deal by Matt Burns originally published on TechCrunch

DiMA Welcomes Feed.fm As Newest MemberThe Digital Media Association welcomes Feed.fm as its newest member, joining Amazon, Apple Music, Pandora, Spotify, and YouTube. Feed.fm is a leading B2B music streaming platform that powers end-to-end music licensing and streaming for global consumer brands across mobile apps, connected devices, and digital entertainment systems.“We are thrilled to be joining DiMA. Feed.fm is on the cutting edge of music streaming technology for businesses and we're excited to be a part of an organization that educates its members on the changing landscape and best practices and to participate in helping shape the future of the music streaming industry,” said Bryn Boughton, Vice President, Music Affairs, Feed.fm.“DiMA welcomes Feed.fm as our newest member,” said DiMA President and CEO Garrett Levin. “We’re excited to work with Feed.fm, which is a compelling example of digital audio innovation that drives fan engagement and new revenue streams. Alongside our existing members, we will continue to advocate for a music industry that allows for this type of innovation to flourish.”Click here to learn more about Feed.fm.

19 top organizations form Fix The Tix to reform concert ticketingA broad coalition of music and live event industry organizations have joined forces as Fix The Tix to advocate for more equitable concert ticketing. Included in the Fix The Tix. Continue reading
The post 19 top organizations form Fix The Tix to reform concert ticketing appeared first on Hypebot.

Spektralisk Recon: Action Sequences for Generate Recon is a collection of sounds that emphasise rhythm. It includes action pulses, complex sequences, gated noise, gnarly bass lines and more, all designed to add a sense of urgency and... Read More

JS80P Is A FREE Yamaha CS-80 Emulation Plugin By Attila M. Magyar
Attila M. Magyar released JS80P, a FREE and open-source Yamaha CS-80 synth emulation in VST and FST plugin formats for Windows and Linux. JS80P comes from developer Attila M. Magyar, and it’s free to download via his GitHub page, as is the source code (available under the terms of the GNU General Public License Version [...]
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Spotify steps up efforts to fight music streaming manipulationSpotify’s ongoing effort to stop the purchase of streams or otherwise manipulate stream counts has accelerated in recent days, according to multiple sources. Recent takedowns involving the AI platform Boomy. Continue reading
The post Spotify steps up efforts to fight music streaming manipulation appeared first on Hypebot.

How Boygenius started the “Sad” Folk-Pop movement on TikTok and beyondDiscover the rising wave of emotive folk-pop from artists like Lizzy McAlpine, taking over TikTok and the global charts, inspired by the sound of indie supergroup Boygenius. by Michelle Hyun. Continue reading
The post How Boygenius started the “Sad” Folk-Pop movement on TikTok and beyond appeared first on Hypebot.

Parametric Audio Debuts Ducky Verb Reverb Plugin (Intro Price + 10% OFF)
Parametric Audio announces Ducky Verb, an advanced algorithmic reverb plugin with ducking and parametric EQ functionality. Use coupon code BPB10 at checkout to get 10% off. There is no such thing as too many reverb plugins. Thankfully, the good folks at Parametric Audio agree. Their latest plugin is Ducky Verb, which has a playful interface [...]
View post: Parametric Audio Debuts Ducky Verb Reverb Plugin (Intro Price + 10% OFF)

OCTO8R Octobillion Bass Monsters [6-40] 35 morphable Bass Monsters for Vital. It is "extension" for previously released presets pack "Octobillion". Demo: https://youtu.be/xxsg_rHuUqo Read More

Softube introduce Model 80 softsynth Softube's latest virtual instrument faithfully recreates the Sequential Prophet-5, adding some optional new features and also making five of its sections available for their Modular plug-in.

Waves release Voltage Amps plug-ins Waves' new guitar and bass amp simulation plug-ins offer a total of seven amp models which aim to deliver perfect tones right out of the box. 

AI can’t replace human writersIn the must-watch final season of “Succession,” Kendall Roy enters a conference room with his siblings. As the scene opens, he takes a seat and declares: “Who will be the successor? Me.”
Of course, that scene didn’t appear on HBO’s hit show, but it’s a good illustration of generative AI’s level of sophistication compared to the real thing. Yet as the Writers Guild of America goes on strike in pursuit of livable working conditions and better streaming residuals, the networks won’t budge on writers’ demands to regulate the use of AI in writers’ rooms.
“Our proposal is that we not be required to adapt something that’s output by AI, and that the output of an AI not be considered writers’ work,” comedy writer Adam Conover told TechCrunch. “That doesn’t entirely exclude that technology from the production process, but it does mean that our working conditions wouldn’t be undermined by AI.”
But the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) refused to engage with that proposal, instead offering a yearly meeting to discuss “advances in technology.”
“When we first put [the proposal] in, we thought we were covering our bases — you know, some of our members are worried about this, the area is moving quickly, we should get ahead of it,” Conover said. “We didn’t think it’d be a contentious issue because the fact of the matter is, the current state of the text-generation technology is completely incapable of writing any work that could be used in a production.”
The text-generating algorithms behind tools like ChatGPT are not built to entertain us. Instead, they analyze patterns in massive datasets to respond to requests by determining what is most likely the desired output. So, ChatGPT knows that “Succession” is about an aging media magnate’s children fighting for control of his company, but it is unlikely to come up with any dialogue more nuanced than, “Who will be the successor? Me.”
According to Ben Zhao, a University of Chicago professor and faculty lead of art anti-mimicry tool Glaze, AI advancements can be used as an excuse for corporations to devalue human labor.
“It’s to the advantage of the studios and bigger corporations to basically over-claim ChatGPT’s abilities, so they can, in negotiations at least, undermine and minimize the role of human creatives,” Zhao told TechCrunch. “I’m not sure how many people at these larger companies actually believe what they’re saying.”
Conover emphasized that some parts of a writer’s job are less obvious than literal scriptwriting but equally difficult to replicate with AI.
“It’s going and meeting with the set decoration department that says, ‘Hey, we can’t actually build this prop that you’re envisioning, could you do this instead?’ and then you talk to them and go back and rewrite,” he said. “This is a human enterprise that involves working with other people, and that simply cannot be done by an AI.”
Comedian Yedoye Travis sees how AI could be useful in a writers’ room.
“What we do in writers’ rooms is ultimately bouncing ideas around,” he told TechCrunch. “Even if it’s not good per se, an AI can throw together a script in however many minutes, compared to a week for human writers, and then it’s easier to edit than to write.”
But even if there may be some promise for how humans can leverage this technology, he worries that studios see it merely as a way to demand more from writers over a shorter period of time.
“It says to me that they’re only concerned with things being made,” Travis said. “They’re not concerned with people being paid for things being made.”
Writers are also advocating to regulate the use of AI in entertainment because it remains a legal grey area.
“It’s not clear that the work that it outputs is copyrightable, and a movie studio is not going to spend $50 to $100 million shooting a script that they don’t know that they own the copyright to,” Conover said. “So we figured this would be an easy give for [the AMPTP], but they completely stonewalled on it.”
As the Writers Guild of America strikes for the first time since its historic 100-day action in 2007, Conover said he thinks the debate over AI technology is a “red herring.” With generative AI in such a rudimentary stage, writers are more immediately concerned with dismal streaming residuals and understaffed writing teams. Yet studios’ pushback on the union’s AI-related requests only further reinforces the core issue: The people who power Hollywood aren’t being paid their fair share.
“I’m not worried about the technology,” Conover said. “I’m worried about the companies using technology, that is not in fact very good, to undermine our working conditions.”

Glaze protects art from prying AIs

Science fiction publishers are being flooded with AI-generated stories

AI can’t replace human writers by Amanda Silberling originally published on TechCrunch

Thirteen New Wave Album ClassicsAuthor Daniel de Visé offers a list of new wave classics, favoring recordings that had real impact, yielded at least one semi-legendary song, feature strong songwriting throughout, emanate a new-wavy vibe, and represent the artist's best work.