(L) Drake. Photo via publicist (R) The Weeknd. Photo by Brian Ziff.
A song utilizing AI-generated vocals to impersonate Drake and The Weeknd has been removed from streaming platforms, Stereogum notes, but not until the track found significant viral success. The song, “heart on my sleeve” by ghostwriter, was streamed hundreds of thousands of times before it was pulled on April 17. Hear a clip of the song below.
The song's removal comes the week after reporting of Universal Music Group's increasingly aggressive stance against AI music trained on the work of their artists. UMG has been in communication with streaming platforms like Apple Music and Spotify for months asking the companies to be more proactive in removing offending songs.
Reached for comment on the issue yesterday, UMG issued the following statement:
“UMG’s success has been, in part, due to embracing new technology and putting it to work for our artists–as we have been doing with our own innovation around AI for some time already. With that said, however, 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. These instances demonstrate why platforms have a fundamental legal and ethical responsibility to prevent the use of their services in ways that harm artists. We’re encouraged by the engagement of our platform partners on these issues–as they recognize they need to be part of the solution.”
