People might be misled by a collab song between Drake and The Weeknd, which was dropped recently. The song was played on different platforms such as Apple Music, Spotify, YouTube, Amazon Music and SoundCloud. The song was already listened to by the artists' millions of fans worldwide.
However, it was actually made by artificial intelligence, mimicking Drake's and The Weeknd's voices, and the streaming platforms playing this song had to pull it out to avoid facing legal consequences.
'Heart on My Sleeve' Draws the Ire of Drake's and The Weekend's Label
As reported by Gizmodo, the AI-generated song by Drake and The Weeknd, titled "Heart on My Sleeve," has been removed from streaming platforms in the last two days. The breakup song went viral and caught the attention of the artists' fans, even though many of them are aware that the performers on the track are not actually them.
If the fans were delighted by the song, Universal Music Group, the recording label that represents Drake and The Weeknd, was not impressed. According to Universal Music, the production of the AI-generated track featuring the voices of their recording artists was a "violation of the copyright law." Furthermore, the company argued that streaming platforms should know better not to make the song available to the public, citing their "legal and ethical responsibility to prevent the use of their services in ways that harm artists."
Following Universal Music Group's complaint, Apple Music and Spotify pulled out the song on Monday. Other streaming platforms such as YouTube, Amazon, SoundCloud, Tidal, TikTok and Deezer followed accordingly a day later. Unfortunately for Universal Music, the AI-generated song has been in circulation for so long that many people have found ways to download the song. There is also nothing to stop them from uploading the song on the Internet.
Related Article: AI-Generated Art: How It's Made and Its Ethics
AI-Generated Tracks May Not Be Considered Violating Copyright Laws, But Only on Some Cases
As reported by Axios, "Heart on My Sleeve" was first uploaded on TikTok by user Ghostwriter977, after using AI software to imitate the voices of Drake and The Weeknd. However, the lyrics used in the song were purely original. TikTok users have listened to the AI-generated song more than 15 million times. On Spotify, the song was streamed by users more than 600,000 times before the streaming platform took it down earlier this week.
The possible copyright infringement case due to the song leaves a debate on whether recording companies could sue individuals for using their talents' vocals through AI to create an original song. As per Engadget, people have already begun to realize the ethical issues surrounding AI, whether using AI to create art verges on copyright infringement as the AI models use the output from already existing artworks by real artists.
However, the US Copyright Office once spoke about the issue and stated that any art created by AI "cannot be copyrighted if it was produced by providing a text prompt to a generative AI model." However, there are special cases when artists cannot be granted copyright for their AI-generated work.
"This is necessarily a case-by-case inquiry. If a work's traditional elements of authorship were produced by a machine, the work lacks human authorship and the Office will not register it," the US Copyright Office explained.
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