Is This The Real Life? Is This Just Fantasy? How The Music Industry Can Fight Back Against Generative AI

• Published date: 03 May 2023
• Subject Matter: Intellectual Property, Media, Telecoms, IT, Entertainment, Privacy, Copyright, Privacy Protection, Music and the Arts
• Law Firm: Seyfarth Shaw LLP
• Author: Mr Patrick Muffo

A new track by Drake and The Weeknd is going viral on social media and is bound to top the charts. The song "Heart on my Sleeve" details the emotional trauma of The Weeknd's breakup with pop star Selena Gomez in a tear jerker that extends just over two minutes. The song has been hailed as the "banger of the weekend" and was viewed more than 8.5 million times on TikTok. The only problem'the song is generated entirely by artificial intelligence and not one bar was written, rapped, or produced by either Drake or The Weeknd.

Several generative AI models now provide the ability to simulate your favorite artist's voice and lyrical tempo to create a track that sounds indistinguishable from the real thing. All a user needs to do is record reference vocals, add musical background, and voila - it now sounds like it was written by Drake. Or The Weeknd. Or Kanye West. Or, really, anyone in the music industry that the user chooses. This video provides a great example of just how easy it is to create a song that sounds like it was written by Kanye West when in fact it was created in 20 minutes by a lyrically-challenged Youtuber.

The results are shocking and have significant implications for the music industry. Several artists have voiced their displeasure for these impersonations and music giants are now pushing streaming services to ban music created by AI models with some success (the Drake/Weeknd song has been removed from all streaming services). But legally, how can the artists fight back?

I. Copyright

Copyright protection is unlikely to help artists whose voice and musical style are simulated by AI models. The models are trained by the artist's vocals but do not reproduce any of those vocals when creating the AI-generated song. There is nothing "copied" by the AI models and therefore no copyright to infringe.

II. Data Privacy

Data privacy may eventually create a path to protection but this will not come easy. The creators of the AI models are unlikely to be contractually bound to restrictions on the use of the voices in songs they own, at least not yet. And state or federal laws are unlikely to restrict use of publicly available songs on privacy grounds.

III. Right of Publicity

The most likely source of legal relief may be found in the artist's right of publicity. A "right of publicity" can be described as a trademark for a person's celebrity. "In cases involving confusion over endorsement by a celebrity plaintiff, 'mark' means the celebrity's persona." White v....