An AI-generated song called "Heart on My Sleeve" with deepfaked voices of Drake and The Weeknd took the music world by storm. The song amassed millions of views and listens across various platforms. But on Tuesday, the party came to an abrupt end as Apple Music, Spotify, Deezer, and Tidal, removed the track following complaints from Universal Music Group (UMG), the artists' label.
- The song's creator, TikTok user @ghostwriter977, claims to have trained unidentified AI software to mimic the artists' voices using video clips.
- Heart on my Sleeve amassed 629,439 streams on Spotify before being pulled, which would equate to earning around $1,888 in royalties at Spotify lower's royalty rate of $0.003 per stream.
The Response: UMG said it's been working on its own AI innovations but has taken a firm stance against "infringing content created with generative AI," stating that it violates copyright law.
- The company has been issuing takedown requests for other AI-generated songs and even asked streaming platforms to block AI developers from scraping their song catalogs for AI training.
The Current Law: The debate over copyright and artificial intelligence is far from straightforward, with UK intellectual property (IP) lawyer Jani Ihalainen stating that deepfaked voices, which don't copy specific performances, might not be covered by current laws and could even be considered protected works in their own right.
Zoom Out: While the debate surrounding copyright law and artificial intelligence is far from settled, one thing is for sure: AI-generated music is making waves, blurring the lines between human creativity and machine-generated artistry. The virality of this song is a historic moment for the music industry, setting the stage of how define art in the age of AI.
The songs keep getting pulled on YouTube. Here is one link that still has it, however we are not sure how long it will stick around.
