Ed here. Saw this thread and thought I'd weigh in.

Agreed, I wouldn't say I was hired to build Stable Audio. Crazy talented team of research engineers / software engineers / designers did the building.

Also wanted to clarify that I didn't quit due to concerns around the training data used for Stable Audio. I was proud of the approach we took to training data - a rev share with rights holders. I quit because of the prevailing view on training data at the wider company, as documented in its public response to the copyright office, where it argues that training on people's work without consent is fair use.

FWIW, I am a rightsholder for a number of published songs and recordings. I once spent $12k of my own money on a record and made about $1000 back.

I have spent more blood, tears and money on art than most of you would find even remotely bearable.

I not only consider my songs to be fair use for training a model but I would also honored if my works were included and influenced further musicians in a way that my records probably never will.

The best songwriters I know have other careers and keep on going otherwise. If you actually care about musicians you should make it a habit to go see local live music!

Thanks for setting the record straight! People tend to put a singular face to things, especially if they have strong feelings about it. Leads to a lot of misrepresentation, especially when the context doesn't accompany the message.

Thanks for the clarification, Ed. That’s quite interesting.

Also congrats on the new company!

HN is usually allergic to recognizing the value of leadership, which always struck me as ironic considering it's leadership that made plenty of startups work.