In this week’s edition of ‘So Obvious We All Knew It Happened, But Now We Have Confirmation,’ press broke that popular AI technology companies trained their large language models on content without the creators’ consent.

Spoiler alert: creators don’t like this.

Big tech, angry creators, and you, the talent representative, in the middle of the chaos.

Time to get mad or the cost of doing business in 2024?

Let’s get into it.

NEWS:

Your Creators are Uncredited AI Coaches

An estimated 173,000 YouTube video transcripts from 48,000 channels, ranging from MrBeast to John Oliver, have been scraped and used to train AI from Silicon Valley’s AI titans.

The dataset was called ‘YouTube Subtitles,’ and technically, it all comes from public information.

The videos are public, after all. So, who cares if someone manually typed the subtitles or if they were scraped?

Therein lies the challenge of AI training: is it akin to me reading news articles and creating this monetized newsletter using the information I learned without paying TechCrunch, or is it intellectual property theft?

To take it a step further, does it matter?

I don’t know about you, but I don’t have the money to sue Nvidia over the transcript of my PronunciationManual video of the word ‘PronunciationManual.’

In these types of lawsuits, the wealthiest company always wins (except the lawyers, who literally always win).

So what are creator reps and talent supposed to do?

My point of view: get loud.

A lawsuit from anyone who isn’t a descendent of the ‘Beast’ family will be ignored, but these brands have one thing they care about deeply that can be affected by the creator economy:

Their brand.

If influential voices make it clear that these activities are not appreciated and creators should have control of LLMs’ ability to train on their content, it can accomplish two things:

1. Brands attempting to be ‘creator-friendly’ will find a way to do it better than their competitors.

2. Tagging government representatives can put this important topic front and center into their agendas, as plenty of politicians are looking for initiatives to show how they support ‘the little guy’ up against Big Tech.

So please call your elected officials, tweet about this issue, and send e-mails to companies that trained AI with your content. Make sure the problem and proposed solutions are clear.

Let your voice ring out:

“You use my work; you’d better pay me.”

NEW OPPORTUNITIES:

SMS is the New E-mail

Average open rate for e-mails: around 20%.

Average open rate for SMS (text messages): around 98%.

If your creators struggle with an unreliable algorithm or an audience that isn’t converting to sales, it’s time to start developing an SMS strategy.

Incredible companies like Kudosity and Laylo have pioneered simple SMS interfaces for celebrities, but there are even cheaper ways to do it!

In fact, many newsletter options offer it for pennies per send (depending on your list size, of course).

So how do you get fans to send their digits?

Host giveaways, provide access to exclusive videos, or offer 10% off for merch.

Ensure you collect and store information legally, or the FTC won’t let you be!

SOCIAL OPTIMIZATION:

Yes, You Should Be Using Instagram Notes

You know those little short messages that show up at the top of your Instagram DMs?

Those are called ‘Instagram Notes’.

And, yes, you should use them.

The goal as a creator on any social platform is to grab attention then hold attention.

Since notes show up at the top of the page in DMs, a feature every Instagram degen uses, you’re very likely to grab the attention of followers you follow back.

And if they tap on the note, they have the opportunity to comment on the note via DM.

And, as we’ve discussed, when you DM with someone, your content is more likely to show in their feed.

So get a new note up every day, even if you’re just using these pithy, pre-canned engagement bait notes!

INDUSTRY HIRING:

SwayID.com needs a Head of Influencer Marketing to get influencers more perks than free pool parties at Tao.

Ogilvy Health seeks an SVP, Head of Influencer & Social Strategy and if you get the job, get me that Ozempic hook up!

Odyssey Entertainment Group wants a Director of Influencer Talent if you think this whole internet thing will keep going…

MEME ZONE:

Thank you for reading! If you enjoyed this edition, give it a share and if you get someone to sign up, I’ll send you my ‘10 Rep-Friendly Ways to Monetize Today!’ deck!

Until next time, protect yo rep.