Artificial intelligence continues to stir controversy… Universal Music Group this week secured the removal of an AI-generated rap track that imitates the voices of artists Drake and The Weeknd.
Created by an internet user named @ghostwriter, the song “Heart On My Sleeve” had gone viral on the social network TikTok and had been listened to millions of times on Spotify, Apple Music and other platforms, before being removed after a major’s request.
“Copyright protects the expression of an idea, which the voice actually is not”
Today, “you can’t copyright someone’s voice,” says Andres Guadamuz, a British law professor who teaches at the University of Sussex in Britain. According to the professor, like a melody, lyrics or other elements of a song, the timbre of a voice could be protected “but that would be problematic” because “copyright protects the expression of an idea , which is not really the voice”.
However, this specialist believes that Universal probably obtained the withdrawal of the song by relying on copyright, which benefits from proven procedures with streaming platforms. “Most of the time, these problems have not been solved thanks to the law but just because the record companies complain to the platforms and it is easier for them to comply,” he says. -he. Especially since Universal Music Group or Sony are, for example, minority shareholders in Spotify.
However, other laws may already protect a musician against copies made by artificial intelligence and, if an artist has a particular personality or voice, these characteristics may be protected by publicity rights. in the USA). In 1988, actress Bette Midler won a lawsuit against Ford, who had used an imitation of her for an advertisement. Singer Tom Waits won a similar case against chip giant Frito-Lay in 1993.
Difficult to stop the avalanche of AI-generated content
The legal battle could finally be over how artificial intelligence programs are trained. In the case of Drake and The Weeknd, they necessarily needed many works of these two artists to be able to imitate them. “You need to copy the music to train AIs and this unauthorized copying could infringe copyright,” explains the professor. “Defenders will say, however, that this is fair use. They use these copies to train the machine, teach it the music, and then they delete them. We will have to wait to see how these cases will be judged, ”he adds.
In the meantime, it will be difficult to stop the avalanche of content generated by artificial intelligence. Just this week, an album impersonating Oasis frontman Liam Gallagher has been spreading across social media. “Bands are going to have to decide if they want to sue this because copyright cases are expensive (…) Some artists could also lean on the technology and start using it themselves, especially if they are starting to lose their voice,” anticipates the law professor.