Fairly Trained - LifeScore [PART 3] Ethics of genAI for music
Looking for an ethical tool that uses generative AI for creating music? Check out this profile of LifeScore, a genAI music company that's certified as Fairly Trained.
This article provides a deep dive on LifeScore, one of the companies working on generative AI for music who have been certified as Fairly Trained. It supports the upcoming PART 3 in our 8-part series “Unfair Use? Ethics of generative AI for music”, announced in this INTRODUCTION post on .
This article series is not a substitute for legal advice and is meant for general information only.
Business and feature information is summarized from the company’s websites; LinkedIn; Crunchbase; PitchBook, where available; and publicly available reviews of one or more of these tools. Links are in the References section.
LifeScore
Descriptions:
Fairly Trained: “LifeScore is an AI-powered music generation technology that transforms original recorded music into high quality, endlessly varying remixes that retain artists’ unique musical fingerprint at scale.”
LinkedIn: “An innovative platform for musical composition that generates original, bespoke, adaptive music in real time.”
Website: “AI-powered music generation in service of artists and rights holders. We transform original recorded music into high quality, endlessly varying remixes that retain artists’ unique musical fingerprint at scale.”
PitchBook: “Operator of a musical entertainment platform intended to generate original, bespoke and adaptive music. The company's platform provides immersive musical experiences for the vehicle that adapts to what is going on while driving or on the flight, for pre-recorded streams it can play all day long without sounding like a playlist, and for live-streaming, the technology can operate across any musical genre such as from ambient and classical to pop, enabling music lovers to gain an adaptive music experience to wellness and health by aiding activities, focus, relaxation, and mindfulness.”
History & Partnerships
LifeScore was founded in 2016 and is headquartered in Salisbury, England.1 They were part of the Abbey Road Incubator. 2 They are privately held (latest deal was Series A, $15m). They have 6 investors (including Warner Music Group) and ~25 employees. 3
In Oct. 2023, LifeScore launched their own music label (“Kaleidoscope”) for distributing music created under collaborations with LifeScore. 4
Automotive integrations seem to be a special focus area. Their site lists Abbey Road Studios, Audi, Bentley, Sony, and Twitch under “trusted by”.
Key Features
LifeScore is primarily a functional music tool provider. Their patented AI-based technology generates “new music on demand to meet specific requirements, such as duration, style and function” within the style of the artist using the tool. They “build custom models of the artist’s original track or album that represent the musical structure of that piece, and use generative techniques to remix it on demand”.
LifeScore offers soundscapes plus a wide variety of remixes: short form, long form (10+ minutes), user-generated, by genre, for an activity. Results can be delivered as static tracks, as live user-generated remixes, or for real-time adaptivity.
Training Data & Technology
A co-founder/co-inventor of Siri leads their technical team. They hold 11 granted patents and have others pending. Their “generative technology produces new music at scale — up to thousands of variations of a single track in several styles and durations. All while the resulting music retains the artist’s identity, brand, and quality.”
Their site indicates they’ve made impressive strides in traceability and data provenance: “We only work on content with full contractual permission, and track the provenance of every piece of music produced. Even when generating thousands of remixes on demand, we know exactly who owns the rights to the content that went into it.”
All of this is consistent with their Fairly Trained certification.
Ownership, Usage Rights, & Pricing
Pricing guidance is not readily available. LifeScore doesn’t appear to have monthly subscription plans. Instead, they work with artists via collaborative services.5
Under their commercial framework, artists who contribute the stems and rights to the stems get ownership of the resulting works, in exchange for a negotiated revenue sharing agreement and credit to LifeScore as a primary/featured artist.
❓If you’re curious about the ethical posture of the big, well-known firms or smaller players who are not yet certified as Fairly Trained, subscribe (for FREE) to be notified of our upcoming posts (the parent PART 3 article, a post on major un-certified companies, a post on other un-certified companies) and the remainder of the series:
REFERENCES and ENDNOTES
Links to upcoming articles
(coming soon)
Analysis page on 9 genAI music companies who are already certified as Fairly Trained (including this one)
PART 3 - top-level article on Who, What, & When in ethics of genAI for music
![[PART 2] Unfair use? GenAI music ETHICAL RISKS & CHALLENGES](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_140,h_140,c_fill,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep,g_auto/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff43d4635-1899-4964-b093-ced7dda4c29e_1600x1066.jpeg)
![[PART 1] Unfair use? Ethics of generative AI for music - WHY & FOR WHOM](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_140,h_140,c_fill,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep,g_auto/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fc06537a2-b301-4907-8b78-0aefdbdf57cf_1001x902.png)
![[INTRO] Unfair use? The ethics of generative AI for music](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_140,h_140,c_fill,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep,g_auto/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F163f723a-f4fc-4701-84a8-3a81cad85775_4896x3264.jpeg)