aethercowboy

I'd like to take a moment here to discuss my relationship with the AI music platofrm Udio.

First of all, I'm flattered if you actually read this, a post on a channel with fewer than 500 subs. Thanks.

Let me start off with some background. Udio, one of the major AI music generation platforms (the other, at the time of writing is Suno; if there are others, apologies for not recognizing you). Between the two, I preferred Udio. While building a song was cumbersome at times (you have to build it in 32-second increments, so making songs with lyrics could get tricky), the overall quality of the generated songs, especially instrumental ones, was far superior to that of Suno (pre-4.5-all model, at least). Additionally, their TOS was more favorable to cheapskates (free users) like me. Under their TOS, you had full commercial rights to the content you generated on their platform, provided you gave attribution to Udio. It was for this reason alone that when anybody would ask which AI music platform I preferred, I'd say that while Suno was easier to use, Udio was generally better.

With their recent TOS updates as of November 12, 2025, however, all that changed. Their key provisions of "ownership" as outlined in section 6 of the TOS went from being very permissive to being the exact opposite. Not only do you no longer have any rights to the content you generate, but by continuing to use the service, you revoke all rights to content you've previously generated as well.

For the sake of simplicity, let's ignore the fact that under US Copyright law, no AI-generated content is granted copyright protection and should be treated as if it's in the public domain. Let's instead focus on the fact that any and all rights they previously granted you are hereby being retroactively revoked.

Fortunately for me, I hadn't used Udio for a while prior to this, and I only discovered this when I saw people on Reddit complaining about it. Thank you, Reddit complainers, because if it wasn't for that, I might have logged into Udio and completely ignored the TOS update.

To the best of my understanding, Terms of Service updates are only applicable for those who continue to use the service. I am not continuing to use the service after their latest TOS updates, and therefore, I am still bound by the old TOS. I already have over a hundred Udio songs on my channel, and have a few more on my computer in various states of completion that maybe one day I'll post. In honor of the old TOS, I will continue to attribute Udio, but will no longer be a user of their service as of the last time I used my Udio account (which was probably some time before Suno's 4.5-all model dropped).

I can't in good faith recommend anybody use Udio anymore, as after their partnership/settlement with UMG, they have become a "streaming platform." I can't see this being anything but an eventual failure, as (a) nobody will want to pay to generate content that they have no rights over, and (b) nobody will want to listen to a bunch of AI music in a walled garden environment. There are millions of royalty free songs written by humans and computers, so I don't see why anybody would want to waste their time with non-royalty-free songs written entirely by computers. Udio will eventually atrophy, wither, and blow away on the wind.

So long, Udio. You've changed, man, but so have I.

4 days ago | [YT] | 1

aethercowboy

I'm going to be taking a break from this channel for a little while. Between having no internet and juggling two (human) writing projects, oh, and a full-time job and a family, things are getting crazy on the steampunk space ranch.

So, it's not goodbye, but more, see you later.

Thanks for watching my videos. I have some more in the queue, so one day I'll subject you all to them.

Greetings From Hiatus! (or is it Hiiatus? I need to have a word with my travel agent...)

Image generated with DALL-E 3.

3 months ago | [YT] | 0

aethercowboy

So, since I'm a total weeb and an aspiring author, I thought I'd take a stab at Honeyfeed's latest novel writing contest, in which you write an isekai light novel, and if senpai notices you, you get mad cash and a publishing deal or something.

This book, unlike my YouTube channel, will be all human-generated (aside from the cover, for which I mashed together some Flux images and had ChatGPT make a pretty picture for it).

I'd appreciate it if you'd give it a read, a like, and even a comment. I'll be writing it between now and the end of September.

Please find it here:

www.honeyfeed.fm/novels/21579

More details about the contest may be found here:

www.honeyfeed.fm/contests/myanimelist_x_honeyfeed_…

4 months ago | [YT] | 0

aethercowboy

Whew. Yeah. So thanks for continuing to watch. Faithful viewers will recall fondly (I hope) the fact that my previous cadence was a new video every day. But that got to be a bit crazy. I'm still trying to find a good cadence, and right now, I'm operating on the cadence of "whenever I get around to it."

Anyway, I'm not dead! Just having logistical issues. Also.... someone keeps falling asleep at their desk, but I'm not going to name names...

More videos coming soon...ish.

5 months ago (edited) | [YT] | 1

aethercowboy

One of the frustrating things about not having Internet access at my house, which sits on the site of a former and possibly haunted old horse farm, is that it's so hard to get videos out in a timely fashion. Once again, sorry for the delay.

More videos coming soon!

I literally use 4G for my home internet.

6 months ago | [YT] | 0

aethercowboy

Apologies for not getting a new video out today. Recently, I had to change my recipe for making videos, and now the most difficult ingredient to acquire has been time.

I'll be back up and running in no time. In the meantime, I'd appreciate your patience and understanding.

Thanks for being awesome!

6 months ago | [YT] | 0

aethercowboy

Thank you everyone for the 300 subscribers. I'm so honored that you keep coming back to listen to these stupid AI songs that I produce. 😜

(Image generated with DALL-E via ChatGPT)

7 months ago | [YT] | 1

aethercowboy

People were asking if I could get Baddest Witch on Facebook and other platforms. In order to get the song on different platforms, it would have to go through a music distributor. Most music distributors charge (I think the big on that everyone uses is DistroKid). Since I'm a cheapskate, I try to do everything for this channel for free. In fact, all of the tools I use are either free or have a free tier that lets me do what I need to do (sometimes I've used tools that have free trials, but I try to avoid that).

So, I tried Freecords, and even read their TOS before uploading. But apparently, their style guide (which wasn't easily found, as it was a blog post, and, honestly, who reads blog posts? :3) prevents AI generated songs. So, I basically gave up on that.

In my research for ways to remove artifacts from audio, though, I came across AI voice replacement for songs, so I thought I'd goof around with that. So, here's a funny little AI cover of an AI song for you to enjoy.

ALSO, if you really DO want to use Baddest Witch (or any of the songs I've produced that use the Creative Commons Attribution license), please do. I won't stop you from downloading the audio and using it in your own works. In fact, I want to know when it's happening, because that's awesome!

8 months ago | [YT] | 0

aethercowboy

It's that time, once again. My 100-subscriber special video reached its next tier of views, so here's a bonus video added to the mix.

The full playlist can be found here: www.youtube.com/playlist?list...

You guys rock!

(Also, had to use different album art for the new one, as Microsoft Designer won't let me edit the original anymore because it's incompatible with their new editor)

8 months ago (edited) | [YT] | 0

aethercowboy

I'm curious like an oyster. You may not have noticed, but I take care not to have any of the following:

1. Clickbait titles ("I HAD AI MAKE A J-POP SONG ABOUT WASHING YOUR HAIR WITH SAKE!")
2. Clickbait thumbnails ("A picture of some guy reacting to learning that washing your hair with sake was once a noble and respected ancient tradition, and how it's even used nowadays in certain haircare products" 😲🍶🧴⁉️
3. Calls to action ("Remember to like and subscribe and share and comment"; okay, so, seriously, I did this once, as a joke)
4. Direct you to other videos at the end of my videos ("If you liked Washu Out of My Hair, you might also like Okie Dokie Doki Doki")

I do that out of respect to my viewers, because I hate those sort of things in other videos. I'm curious, though, what you, my best internet buddies in all the world think, though. What are the most annoying practices that YouTubers do in their videos?

Feel free to comment with any other things. Just don't say "make stupid polls" 💔😭


(Just kidding. I can handle it. I'm a big, tough, cowboy after all)

8 months ago | [YT] | 0