UMG Responds to Viral Fake Drake AI Song

Universal Music Group has responded to the big news of this week: a fake Drake song created with AI that is going viral on social media and streaming platforms.

The track called ‘heart on my sleeve’, credited to the ‘artist’ “ghostwriter,” has racked up more than 230,000 plays on YouTube and more than 630,000 streams on Spotify.

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The song also features AI-replicated vocals of The Weeknd’s voice. As we are aware, both Canadian superstars release music through UMG’s Republic Records. Now the parent label has responded to the development in a press statement.

“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.

These instances demonstrate why platforms have a fundamental legal and ethical responsibility to prevent the use of their services in ways that harm artists.

“We’re encouraged by the engagement of our platform partners on these issues–as they recognize they need to be part of the solution.”

Some music streaming services such as Apple Music, Deezer, and TIDAL have pulled down the track today (April 17). But this will definitely be an interesting story to track as instances like these will keep taking place before a strict rule is applied on DSPs’ end.