Music industry shaken by viral AI-generated pop song imitating Drake and The Weeknd

An AI-generated pop song imitating Drake and The Weeknd has sparked questions about the future of the music industry.

The fake Drake and The Weeknd song created by artificial intelligence has been stopped in its viral tracks after it was yanked off streaming services.

The original TikTok post of a one-minute snippet of Heart on My Sleeve, which features AI-generated vocals similar to the mega chart stars, has also been taken down from the ghostwriter977 account.

While the song is no longer listed on Spotify or Apple, the full 2:15 minutes version of the track, which Ghostwriter claims “I used AI to make a drake song ft. the weeknd”, is available on YouTube.

And the “artist” continues to post TikToks using the track and taunting the music industry.

Ghostwriter claims they used AI to make a song imitating Drake and The Weeknd.

But it appears Universal Music Group, the label which has both chart kings Drake and The Weeknd on its books, has successfully lobbied the streaming giants to take the track down.

In a statement to music industry bible Billboard, UMG said streaming players needed to decide which side of history they wanted to be on in the copyright war against AI.

“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,” a UMG spokesman said in a statement.

There was plenty of praise for the song online with fans declaring it an “absolute banger.”

AN AI-generated song which soundslike Drake and The Weeknd is blowing up online. Picture: Wireimage.

While it is clear the voices on Heart on my Sleeve are not Drake or The Weeknd, they are unmistakably in their distinctive styles.

And the AI vocalists trade verses about The Weeknd’s ex Selena Gomez, further fuelling the intrigue about the track online.

One online sleuth’s theory is the song is a marketing gimmick to get people to share their phone number with its artists’ services platform from a start-up called Laylo.

This song is VIRAL on all platforms right now.

But I think it's all a genius marketing stunt...

Not by Drake, but by a SaaS startup.

Here's a 30-second summary of the ai Drake song and my prediction of who's behind it. 👻 pic.twitter.com/puklgqjElZ

— Mitchell Cohen (@MitchellLandon) April 16, 2023

Listen to this AI generated song featuring Drake & The Weeknd.

It goes so damn hard.

It's by "Ghostwriter977" on TikTok and it's blowing up on socials + streaming platforms.

UMG, which controls around 1/3 of the global music market, has already asked streaming platforms to ban… pic.twitter.com/roz2EfI48M

— Roberto Nickson (@rpnickson) April 16, 2023

Whether it’s a song drop or a database-building hoax, you can bet the music industry’s legal departments are prepping for copyright war.

The world’s biggest music label Universal lobbied Apple and Spotify last week to block artificial intelligence companies from using music on their platform to train their programs.

Industry lawyers will argue Heart On My Sleeve infringes on copyright provisions forbidding imitation.

While parody impersonations of voices or songs are allowed, copyright laws protect the “likeness’ of the artist and forbid the appropriation of their name, voice, photographs or other personal identifiers.

Any legal proceeding is likely to claim the artists would suffer a loss of earnings due to the imitation.

But of course hip hop god Drake himself isn’t averse to sampling other people’s voices, with his current global hit Search & Rescue featuring a snippet of Kim Kardashian talking about her divorce from Kanye West.

Originally published as Music industry shaken by viral AI-generated pop song imitating Drake and The Weeknd