The track, heart on my sleeve, credited to the ‘artist’ ghostwriter, has racked up more than 230,000 plays on YouTube, and more than 625,000 plays on Spotify.
In addition to AI-replicated vocals of Drake, the track – a seemingly original composition – also features AI-replicated vocals of The Weeknd’s voice.
Both Drake and The Weeknd release their (real life) records via UMG and its Republic Records.
Said UMG in a statement to MBW in the wake of today’s news: “UMG’s success has been, in part, due to embracing new technology and putting it to work for our artists–as we have been doing with our own innovation around AI for some time already.
“With that said, however, the training of generative AI using our artists’ music (which represents both a breach of our agreements and a violation of copyright law) as well as the availability of infringing content created with generative AI on DSPs, begs the question as to which side of history all stakeholders in the music ecosystem want to be on: the side of artists, fans and human creative expression, or on the side of deep fakes, fraud and denying artists their due compensation.
The Trichordist 