Artificial Intelligence (AI) is stirring up a newly copyrighted debate in the music industry. The track “Heart On My Sleeve,” created by TikTok creator Ghostwriter977, quickly gained traction with 275,000 YouTube plays and 625,000 Spotify plays before being removed by Universal Music Group (UMG), the record label of Drake and The Weeknd. UMG demanded major music platforms—including Apple Music, Spotify, YouTube, Amazon Music, and SoundCloud—remove the song as they view it as copyright infringement, as streaming platforms like Spotify, Apple, and YouTube, have to comply with valid copyright takedown requests according to the Communications Decency Act.
The act protects streaming platforms from being legally liable for content uploaded by third parties and fans of the AI song continued to reupload it, increasing the song’s listeners and leaving the streaming giant in a ‘whack-a-mole’ situation. Attorney and CEO of AR Media, Andrew Rossow, states that the legal recourse of an artist or record label for a copyright violation would depend on several variables, such as the country in which the infringement occurred.
Incredibly, albums that include ai-generated vocals of musicians are only increasing. Just last week, another AI-generated project AIsis - The Lost Tapes by the British rock band, Breezer, featured the computer-generated voice of Oasis frontman Liam Gallagher performing Breezer’s songs. This highlights the creative potential of AI and its capabilities to shape the music industry in the coming years and potential legal procedures around the technology.
The debate surrounding AI and copyright violations highlights a conflict of values between supporting artificial creativity for the sake of innovation and protecting authorship and ownership rights. It also brings to light the gap in responsibility from the music industry when it comes to copyright infringement violations and how to stop them. Ultimately, the industry needs regulations and guidelines that reduce risk for platforms but also work to support the creators, fans and innovation that drives the music industry.
Melanie Lee
- 2023-04-19
AI Invigorating the Debate Around Copyright Infringement in Music Industry
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is stirring up a newly copyrighted debate in the music industry and albums with ai-generated vocals are only increasing, highlighting the creative potential of AI but also the legal procedures. Learn more about this conflict of values between supporting artificial creativity and protecting authorship and ownership rights.
