The music industry is at least 10 or 20 times older than the concept of copyright. The traditional business model was always about live performance and patronage, and even today that’s where most musicians’ income comes from. The recordings and radio/streaming play could make money, but it was mostly advertisement for the shows and merch. So functionally, the advertising machine is shifting towards making culture a mere commodity, which is a new thing.
The other thing here is that while it is a continuation of industrialization of artisan work like furniture and textiles, we are finally going into the area of commoditizing the work of the artists. Admittedly the split between artisans and artists only happened recently in the Renaissance, but it’s still a different threshold, where culture itself is mechanized. And instead of asking if it is a good idea to take the humanities out of the hands of humans, the only real consideration will be short-term shareholder value.
I am, of course, well aware that musicians and the music industry existed before copyright. I am questioning the possibility that humans might be successfully optimized out of music or even entirely out of the music industry. Even when models are better than humans, humans will be free to make music, just as chess players are still free to play chess now that humans are no longer the best at chess.
The point about algorithms driving culture is more interesting.