Napster co-founder Sean Parker is back in the music industry, but this time he tells The Information he’s playing by the rules. (Last time I had trouble asking for forgiveness instead of permission, but he readily admitted it.)
Two years ago, he was part of Stability AI’s $80 million rescue effort. Stability AI is an image generation startup that nearly went bankrupt after overspending and internal turmoil led to the ouster of founder Emad Mostaq. Now, Parker and his longtime friend and CEO Prem Akaraju are unraveling what they’ve built.
The big idea, Parker said, is to turn Stability into the go-to AI toolmaker for music professionals. To that end, in late August the company announced $76 million in funding from Sony, Warner, Universal and others, who also licensed training catalogs as part of the deal. Since then, Stability has released three new audio models and AI music editing software. The AI can generate entire instrumental tracks or short snippets from text prompts. Parker said future updates will allow users to control the app by humming a melody or beatboxing a drum pattern.
