AI Generated Fake Drake Song – Legit or Lawsuit?

The Universal Music Group is accusing a TikTok creator of copyright infringement after they published an AI-Generated song that was made to sound like a Drake and Weeknd collaboration. Scott Hervey and Josh Escovedo discuss this dispute in this episode of The Briefing by the IP Law Blog. Watch this episode on the Weintraub YouTube channel here. Cases Discussed: * Middler v. Ford * Astley v. Matthew Hauri, pka Yung Gravy Show Notes: Scott: Last week, a new Drake and Weeknd collaboration disrupted the Internet. The only problem is that it wasn't a Drake and Weeknd collaboration, after all. The song "Heart on My Sleeve" was written and produced by TikTok user ghostwriter977. The vocals for "Heart on My Sleeve" were generated by artificial intelligence, made to sound like Drake and The Weeknd. UMG, the record label behind the artists, is furious and is pushing music streamers to block AI tools from training on its artists' melodies and lyrics. While "Heart on My Sleeve" was ultimately removed from Spotify due to a copyright issue…the song had an unauthorized sample in it…we could see more original AI fake Drake songs from ghostwriter 977, and there may not be anything UMG or the artist can do about it. We are going to talk about this next on the Briefing by the IP Law Blog. Scott: The music industry sees generative AI tools that can create music that sounds like a specific artist, as a real threat to business. In response to the fake Drake AI song, UMG issued a statement publicly encouraging digital service providers not to let generative AI tools train on music issued by their artists. UMG considers this a violation of copyright law. Josh: As we have previously covered, this issue-whether the training of an AI tool on existing copyright-protected works constitutes infringement or is fair use - is currently being litigated in a number of cases. Whether the initial content-copying AI tool does as part of its learning process constitutes infringement or protectable fair use will have a profound effect on the future of AI. The court's focus will be on whether this copying is part of an overall transformative process to be weighed against the commercial impact the tool has on the applicable industry. Scott: Focusing on the output, most, if not all, of those cases deal with generative AI platforms that create visual works. Here we are talking about the creation of a musical work where the song itself was original, written by ghostwriter977.   And since UMG based its takedown on a small sample audio tag included in Heart on My Sleeve, it seems fair to assume that the original components of the song itself probably are not infringing. Josh: "Heart on My Sleeve" wasn't the last of the Fake Drake. Another Fake Drake AI track recently dropped. The track "Winter's Cold" was posted to Soundcloud on April 18, featuring the artificial vocals of Drake. The track has already garnered over 120,000 listeners on the platform. This, I am sure, has the record industry strategizing on how to put this all back in the bottle. And I assume further legal maneuvering is in the works. Scott: I agree. I suspect the next step could include the artist filing a right of publicity claim. Josh: California’s right of publicity statute is Civil Code section 3344 prohibits the use of another's name, voice, photograph, or likeness on or in products, merchandise, or goods or for purposes of advertising or selling…..such products, merchandise, goods without such person's prior consent. California also has a common law right of publicity that's a bit broader than the...