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Universal Music Group Calls For AI Music To Be Banned On Streaming Platforms

On Monday 17th April 2023, a TikTok user known as Ghostwriter977 released a song on the platform called 鈥淗eart on my Sleeve鈥� using generative artificial intelligence. The song imitated the voices of rapper Drake and singer The Weeknd.

It mimics the two celebrities swapping lines and verses about Selena Gomez, who once dated The Weeknd. As of yet, neither of the two artists has responded or commented on the song. However, Drake had recently expressed his displeasure after coming across

a fan-made video of his voice being cloned and singing along to Ice Spice鈥檚 track Munch (Feeling U).

Universal Music Group (UMG) was quick to action against this new Goliath, artificial intelligence, which is proving a menace to the industry. UMG represents many superstars in the global music industry including Sting, Nicki Minaj, Ariana Grande, The Weeknd, and Drake.

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The label, UMG, condemned the song by Ghostwriter977 for 鈥渋nfringing content created with generative AI鈥� as reported by The Guardian. The song has since been pulled from major streaming platforms but by then it had racked up millions of views. It had 600,000 Spotify streams, 15m TikTok views, and 275,000 YouTube views.

In April, the company sent urgent letters to streaming platforms including Apple, YouTube, and Spotify regarding the emerging use of generative AI in the industry. The letter asked the platforms to block artificial intelligence platforms from training their modules on the melodies and lyrics of their copywritten songs on their respective platforms.

According to CNN, a UMG spokesperson said that the company (UMG), has 鈥渁 moral and commercial responsibility to our artists to work to prevent the unauthorized use of their music and to stop platforms from ingesting content that violates the rights of artists and other creators. We expect our platform partners will want to prevent their services from being used in ways that harm artists.鈥�

The company also states that AI models that use an artist鈥檚 music violate the company鈥檚 agreements and copyright law. 鈥淭he training of generative AI using our artists鈥� music 鈥� begs the question as to which side of history all stakeholders in the music ecosystem want to be on,鈥� UMG said in a statement.

The move by UMG aims to mitigate what can only be described as an existential threat to the industry in the form of generative AI. However, as CNN reports, it will be difficult to control AI in the industry.

Karl Fowlkes, an entertainment and business attorney at The Fowlkes Firm told CNN, 鈥淚 understand the intent behind the move, but I鈥檓 not sure how effective this will be as AI services will likely still be able to access the copyrighted material one way or another.鈥�

At the moment, no regulations exist on what AI can or cannot train. Fowlkes went on to add, 鈥淎I companies (or users) using copyrighted works to train their models to create similar works is exactly the type of behavior the copyright office and courts should explicitly ban. Original art is meant to be protected by law, not works created by machines that used the original art to create new work.鈥�

Shelly Palmer, a Professor of Advanced Media at Syracuse University said, 鈥淵ou can flag your site not to be searched. But that鈥檚 a request, you can鈥檛 prevent it. You can just request that someone not do it.鈥�