![los angeles, california june 04 drake attends the la premiere of hbos euphoria at the cinerama dome on june 04, 2019 in los angeles, california photo by frazer harrisongetty images](https://hips.hearstapps.com/hmg-prod/images/gettyimages-1153778013-64411fa6546f3.jpg?resize=1200:* "LA Premiere Of HBO's "Euphoria" - Arrivals")
Did you hear the new one from Drake and The Weeknd? Heart on My Sleeve was probably the biggest song to come out of Coachella – that is, until it was roundly deleted from video sites. It turned out that the vocals for the long-awaited (and extremely convincing) reunion were in fact created by artificial intelligence, with neither artist having anything to do with the track at all.
That's right. If you thought that Pope-in-a-puffer pic was a head-spinning watershed moment for AI, it’s nothing compared to what’s currently happening in the musical side of the emerging (and terrifying) technology.
Look in the right spaces, and there’s a constant stream of ethical dubious “new” music being released by artists both living and dead, from Amy Winehouse to Tupac Shakur. Then there’s the highly popular TikTok-led trend of AI covers: musicians singing-but-not-really-singing versions of uncharacteristic tracks from other artists. Admittedly, some of these are pretty funny, including Harry Styles covering Style by Taylor Swift, about Styles himself. They have, suffice to say, been pulled together and uploaded without any of the artists’ permission. Even David Guetta is getting in on the action, creating a track with an AI-Eminem about future rave, and playing it during his sets. “I made it as a joke,” he says in the accompanying YouTube video. “People went nuts!”
But the biggest artist by far to be musically mocked-up is Kanye West. Kanye does Coldplay! Queen! Ice Spice! Blue (Da Ba Dee)! Whether people miss the old Kanye (straight from the go Kanye) or just feel that he’s fair game for an online ribbing, he’s become the main target. Would the man who pioneered the use of auto-tune in rap (alongside T-Pain) approve of these creative reworkings? Possibly, possibly not. But record labels certainly aren't happy with the situation, and the threat it poses. While TikTok has deals in place with labels in order to licence music (meaning artists then receive royalties from having their music used on the platform), the use of AI tracks is a much greyer area, and importantly, not a lucrative one.
According to the Financial Times, the world’s largest music company, Universal Music Group, targeted major streaming services like Spotify and Apple requesting that they block AI companies from using AI music of their artists. But has the horse already bolted? One source in the report said the company had been sending out takedown requests “left and right” while UMG said in a statement: “We have a moral and commercial responsibility to our artists to work to prevent the unauthorised use of their music and to stop platforms from ingesting content that violates the rights of artists and other creators. We expect our platform partners will want to prevent their services from being used in ways that harm artists.”
The Heart on My Sleeve controversy has left the music industry floundering. When the TikTok account Ghostwriter977 first uploaded the track, it quickly racked up hundreds of thousands of streams across Spotify, TikTok and YouTube. Just a few days later on Monday, April 17, the track was suddenly pulled from sites including Apple Music, Deezer and TIDAL. UMG declined to comment to Esquire when asked whether they specifically asked for the track to be removed from the streamers. Ghostwriter, meanwhile, is sidestepping all of this and still currently sending out the original track through the drop platform, Laylo.
In a statement, UMG explained: “The training of generative AI using our artists’ music (which represents both a breach of our agreements and a violation of copyright law) as well as the availability of infringing content created with generative AI on DSPs, begs the question as to which side of history all stakeholders in the music ecosystem want to be on: the side of artists, fans and human creative expression, or on the side of deep fakes, fraud and denying artists their due compensation.” Which does smack a little of the “home taping is killing music” moral panic of the ‘80s, it has to be said. But the point remains.
The spokesperson continued that the emphasis was on streamers and social media sites to reject these tracks: “We’re encouraged by the engagement of our platform partners on these issues – as they recognize they need to be part of the solution.”
According to Variety, there are other battle lines trying to be drawn in a bid to deal with the many unresolved copyright issues floating around in music at the moment: “Last month, more than 40 organisations — including the Recording Academy, the National Music Publishers Assn. and the Recording Industry of America — launched the Human Artistry Campaign, a coalition ‘to ensure artificial intelligence technologies are developed and used in ways that support human culture and artistry – and not ways that replace or erode it.’”
Meanwhile, back in the UK, real life humans are getting even more creative with the new online medium. Meet AIsis, an AI cover band of Oasis who obviously don’t exist outside of a computer, but have created the 33-minute album The Lost Tapes, which actually sound like discarded Beady Eye B-sides. “We’ve brought a band back from the dead!” said Jon Claire, one of the people who penned the original songs and applied Liam Gallagher soundalike vocals via AI. “And I think that’s something we’ll see a lot more of,” he told The Guardian.
The fight is on, but it's going to be a struggle. DJ and producer Yung Guru wrote on Instagram about Jay-Z and Kendrick Lamar being morphed into AI tracks: “On one hand I’m well aware that you can’t stop technology. Once the genie is out of the box you can put him back in. On the other hand we have to protect the rights of the artist… People should not be able to take your name, image and likeness without permission. We have to add the voice to this law.”
It’s a feeling that other musicians share, including Drake, the target of the original viral song. “This is the final straw AI” he wrote on an Instagram story addressing the track. But as the anonymous Ghostwriter ominously warns in his TikTok bio: “I’m just getting started”.
