Edward Balassanian

I'm the CEO and founder of Aimi. I'm also the CEO of Endanik, a venture lab that created Aimi.

Why Independent Artists Need a Fair Generative-AI Royalty Model

What the Suno/Udio Major-Label Deals Really Mean Last week Forbes reported that Universal, Sony, and Warner are negotiating blanket licensing pacts with Suno and Udio—start-ups often called the “ChatGPTs of music.” The majors will hand over decades of catalog masters in exchange for cash, ongoing fees, and even equity stakes.  From the labels’ perspective it’s pragmatic: monetize […]

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AI Generated Music Collapse: How Aimi Avoids It

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols’ recent column in The Register, “AI model collapse is coming for generative content,” describes models that keep retraining on their own output until every iteration becomes a blur—a photocopy of a photocopy. Long before that piece, Aimi had already built its product thesis around the same threat. Our 2023 post “Why Is AI Music

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Fair-Use Fault Lines in Generative AI & What They Mean for Music

Last week U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria issued a set of 12 razor-sharp questions ahead of the summary-judgment hearing in Kadrey v. Meta—a lawsuit that claims Meta trained its Llama language model on “pirated” e-books. His order signals that courts are no longer asking whether AI training implicates copyright, but how deeply it cuts. Key

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Splice Acquires Spitfire

Splice’s surprise purchase of Spitfire Audio this week isn’t just another gear-company headline—it’s a flashing sign that the sample-library gold rush is winding down and the age of real-time, AI-generated soundtracks is here. Splice reportedly paid about $50 million for the British maker of high-end orchestra libraries, hoping to fold those sounds into its AI discovery engine and

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8-D Audio vs. Aimi: From Viral Headphone Trick to Living Electronic Soundtracks

The first time you click a YouTube clip labelled “8-D AUDIO – USE HEADPHONES,” the music seems to swirl behind your eyes. That sensation is produced by nothing more exotic than rapid left-to-right panning, a splash of reverb, and some tone-shaping that mimics the way your ear flaps colour sound. The effect went mainstream in

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