Cupertino
Yungwood
Season 1
Episode 7
Editor’s Ranking
3 stars
***
Buckle in — we’re litigating musicians making AI slop this week.
Photograph: Elizabeth Fisher/CBS
As I’ve talked about earlier than, the important thing to creating a great courtroom drama — and Cupertino is on its option to being an excellent one — is to make sure that the legal professionals going through off in opposition to our righteous heroes could make their very own compelling circumstances. I firmly imagine that sturdy arguments make for good tv. However how will you try this when the opposition is defending AI slop?
On this week’s episode, an over-the-hill rapper who goes by the stage title Yungwood (Cliff “Methodology Man” Smith) involves his outdated buddy Michael Value for assist with a lawsuit that’s going nowhere. Yungwood depends on the revenue from streams of his outdated songs, however his numbers have dropped off precipitously ever because the main streaming providers — represented right here by the fictional Noisement — began internet hosting AI music that sounds nearly similar to his. Yungwood first retained PSA’s enemy Ry Vance, who dropped the case as quickly because the music-tech titans pushed again arduous by hiring Bayard Diamond, Michael’s father.
There are purple flags aplenty on this case for PSA. The agency nonetheless wants some fast and profitable wins, and with the Yungwood lawsuit, they’ll be coping with an unpredictable shopper who movies himself practically 24/7 for his social-media followers, making inflammatory feedback that evaluate music-industry executives to slaveholders. They’re additionally up in opposition to a deep-pocketed opposition who can drain their coffers with motions and delays.
Nonetheless, just a few episodes in the past, Michael allowed Olivia to pursue her “campaign” in opposition to WorkSource in trade for her promising to again some future campaign of his personal. Now could be the time for Michael’s campaign. Not in opposition to Noisement essentially, however in opposition to Bayard.
The case itself gives some incredible theater, and never simply because father and son can’t cease themselves from making a number of petty objections, needling one another and infuriating the choose (Danny Burstein). No, what’s extra fascinating about the best way this lawsuit performs out is that it pushes the Cupertino viewers — who, I assume, are all inclined to suppose that AI ripoff artists are all lazy, parasitic scum — to suppose arduous about what music is, who makes it, and who advantages from that work.
Let’s take this one after the other, however out of order. First: Who makes it? On one aspect we’ve Yungwood, an artist properly previous his prime, whose declining streaming numbers may have simply as a lot to do with a current incident the place he assaulted a person at a bar. However at the least Yungwood can show in courtroom that he composes his songs himself, beginning with a guitar that he truly performs. On the opposite aspect we’ve Purvis Beer (Amir Malaklou), who turned Yungwood’s greatest hit, “Booty Bass,” into the deceptively titled sound-alike “Bass Booty,” and who can’t even play a C chord on a piano, regardless of claiming to be a “born musician.”
Which raises the following query: What’s music? And it’s right here that this episode turns into genuinely difficult. Can Michael argue that what Yungwood does — deriving songs from a protracted custom of folks music and spirituals, a lot of which melodically resemble “Booty Bass” — is wholly distinctive from Purvis Beer layering instrumental tracks utilizing AI prompts? In spite of everything, each songwriters are counting on their tastes, their reminiscence, and their relative facility with the musical instruments at hand.
In fact, there needs to be an finish to this stalemate for the dramatic pressure to resolve. And ideally it ought to be a break in favor of our aspect. So we come to the ultimate query: Who advantages? That is the place Noisement and the AI music producer Gold Artist Studio get type of caught with their palms within the cookie jar. PSA is ready to show that Noisement is manipulating its algorithm to deprioritize Yungwood and different legacy artists in favor of the cheaper, extra profitable GAS knockoffs. When the choose pulls out his telephone to take heed to Jimmy Buffett and is directed towards some slop that kind of appears like Jimmy Buffett, it’s recreation over for Noisement.
As has occurred a few instances on this first season, the ending is each satisfying and a bit abrupt. It appears like there’s extra that might’ve been mined from this debate over musical authorship, which predates the AI increase. (However I did like that Yungwood makes use of the controversy to get well-known once more, partially by hiring a bot farm in Peru to goose his numbers.)
The largest motive why the Yungwood story line feels curtailed is that a few third of the working time this week is devoted to a subplot carried over from “Harper.” As Olivia suspected, her older brother, Jacob, is being scammed by a pig-butchering operation understanding of Krakow. Probably the most damning piece of proof arrives when Jacob tries to assist his “girlfriend” get by way of “customs” by offering private banking data, which finally ends up compromising the Siffre household’s Christian publishing enterprise.
There’s a twist right here, and it’s a great one. Whereas Olivia is working with “Josh Frank” from “One Coast Financial institution” to guard her dad and mom’ accounts, she abruptly wonders if she herself is being performed. In case you’re the type of one who reads each doable long-form article about frauds and swindles, you recognize that Olivia is correct to be cautious, as a result of “saving you from a con artist” can also be a typical con. (As soon as once more, there’s a nice New York Journal article about this phenomenon from The Minimize.)
Olivia will get Vik to assist her rip-off the scammers, utilizing what he calls a “beaconing payload” to trace them down and infect their community with malware. Once more, this can be a satisfying end result, if perhaps too neat. But when I’m being trustworthy, my greatest beef with how the One Coast subplot resolves is how dopey it seems. Because the malware hits the Krakow workplace, the entire computer systems begin making loud beeping noises and popping up massive warning home windows.
That’s the kind of factor you’d anticipate to see from a a lot cornier present, and never one as savvy about tech as Cupertino. It’s fairly sloppy … no offense to all of the AI artists on the market.
• We be taught a bit extra on this episode about Michael’s lifeless sister, Anna, who jumped off a balcony as a result of she was bored with the stress from their demanding father. She was apparently a Yungwood fan, which is one more reason why Michael took this case.
• Natalia will get to place her legislation diploma to make use of on this episode, filling in for Olivia in courtroom, the place she struggles to determine how greatest to face whereas questioning a witness. (The choose: “Attempt perching.”) She additionally laughs at Bayard when he accuses her of being a wannabe who “unfold your legs for the third-richest man.” Whereas smirking straight in his face, she whispers, “You shouldn’t drink earlier than courtroom.”
• Natalia makes Michael nervous by suggesting that she’s not as wealthy as she could should be to maintain the agency afloat. However when Michael shouldn’t be round, she tells the folks constructing her workplace that she must have her personal bathe and that she’ll be masking the expense from her private account. Is Natalia making guarantees she will’t hold?
• A pleasant, life like contact: Over the previous few episodes, the reduce that Olivia acquired on her cheek in “A.J. & Buddy” has steadily shrunk, till by the tip of this episode she’s now not sporting a bandage.
• Olivia may be very flirty with Vik this week, and the episode ends with the 2 of them going out to dinner at a spot Christy advised — someplace very loud with a dance flooring. It’s good to see Christy having fun with herself, and but I couldn’t assist however discover that she’s nonetheless downing her booze fairly arduous.
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