Streaming platforms remove gone-viral AI-generated song by Drake and The Weeknd

But how does one credit something like that anyway? The AI created it, but it can’t bear the fruits of its labor, for it does not need them. The user who prompted it exerted some form of creativity, but that is based on what the AI model knows about the performers. And as for the musicians themselves… Well, they didn’t play a direct role in the equation.

The song went viral and its creator, going by @ghostwriter, got approximately 629,439 streams from it on Spotify alone. The platform’s lowest rate is about $0.003 per stream, so that amounts to somewhere around $1,888. But the song was also on all other major streaming platforms.

BBC released a report which highlights the comments of Universal Music — publisher of the aforementioned artists — which, to no one’s surprise, is claiming that this is a form of copyright violation. The publisher stated that AI platforms have a “legal and ethical responsibility” to combat this sort of usage.

Apple led the string of takedowns, removing it from its Apple Music streaming service. Deezer, Tidal, TikTok, Spotify and YouTube followed suit closely after, but the source quotes that the song can still be found online.

Copyright specialists from the UK have commented that the current legislation is nowhere near prepared for this sort of shenanigans. This means that songs like this could potentially be seen as completely original by the law, depending on how deep the deepfake is. 

But as we can see from the example here, publishers aren’t ready to take this sitting down. AI was sure to have a huge impact on all of our lives, but who would’ve thought that it would extend to a necessity to change copyright laws, huh?