Try this: go out and take some sounds off the internet, don't pay the people who recorded those sounds and make a synthesizer out of them, and sell it. Let the people whose recordings you stole know what you did, and see how that works out for you. The lawsuit will be straightforward.
Now, go out and take those same sounds off the internet, don't pay the people who recorded those sounds, and use them to train an AI, and sell it. You're still a thief, but now it's much harder to prove you're a thief, and lots of AI investors will invest money making sure that courts decide you're not a thief.
My digital piano literally has soundfonts designed to mimic other instruments. A Fender Stratocaster, a Rhodes electric organ, etc. All of them are clear and blatant ripoffs of instruments.
The recordings may be legally protected. But if I use a sound engineer to listen to those recordings to fake these sounds, it's not that much different than an AI doing it.
Amazing. You've found a way to devalue the labor of both the artist AND the sound engineer in one go. At least you're consistent in not wanting to pay people for their work!
Yeah, but there's many, many synthesizers that don't work like this - and many people actually wouldn't even use the term "synthesizer" for this kind of instrument.
Now, go out and take those same sounds off the internet, don't pay the people who recorded those sounds, and use them to train an AI, and sell it. You're still a thief, but now it's much harder to prove you're a thief, and lots of AI investors will invest money making sure that courts decide you're not a thief.