AI Rocks The Music Industry, Deepfake Song Begins To Be Responded To By Universal Music

JAKARTA - The AI phenomenon may have ended the MP3 era as well as the album replacing CDs and cassettes ending the dominance of the disk. Every time the music industry has adapted and developed. However, what is the record label planning to face the threat of artificial intelligence (AI)?

Well, after the appearance of a series of 'deepfake' songs in which musicians such as Johnny Cash, Frank Total, and Drake have been very convincingly imitated by their voices, the world's biggest record labels are taking action.

Universal Music is currently in talks with Google to license the artist's voice and melody so that it can be used for the songs produced by AI. How is the production of this new era of music and how does it sound?

What are the characteristics of AI songs?

There are several examples, namely the clone Frank totaling Coolio's Gangsta's Paradise, 'Johnny Cash' re-singing Aqua's Barbie Girl, and Harry Styles' voice was imitated to make a duet with American singer-songwriter Lizzy McAlpine, whose song Celings went viral on TikTok.

In fact, some YouTube channels are even dedicated to making AI-generated music.

Kanye West's voice was taken to make it sound like he was singing an acoustic ballad Hey There, USA in 2006, while the 'deepfake' has been produced from Rihanna which seems to appear with Beyoncé'sUFF It song.

Drake and The Weeknd have also been the target of this growing trend, while this technology has helped'revival' the voices of deceased musicians such as Elvis Presley, David Bowie, and Michael Jackson, as well as Cash and cap.

A YouTube user named PluggingAI also promotes songs that mimic the sound of legendary rappers who have died, such as Notorious BI.G. and Tupac.

How Is The Music Produced By AI Created?

Basically, anyone can do it if they know how. Some websites already offer fans the ability to create new songs using sounds similar to the sound of famous singers in the pop world.

One site, created by the California-based OpenAI company - which is also responsible for the highly popular AI bot, ChatGPT - is called Jukebox.

It's a neural network that produces a creepy approach from pop songs in the style of some artists.

Some experts believe that this technology could shake up the music industry by creating new hits, but controversy surrounds it due to copyright issues.

Deepfake music sharpens the limit between the use of copyright-protected songs and the use of cheaper or copyright-free approaches.

"If someone hasn't used the original footage yet, you don't have legal action against them in terms of copyright related to voice recordings," said Rupert Skellett, head of law from the British record company, Bergars Group.

One of the free accessible AI tools is MidJourney, which produces videos, while uberduck.ai has been used by French DJ David Guetta to emulate Eminem's voice so that it can be added to one of its instrumentalists.

"I believe the future of music is in AI," Guetta told the BBC.

Are Universal and Google close to music production?

No, discussions are in their early stages and there has been no immediate product launch.

However, the goal is to reach an agreement where more software can be developed that allows fans to create songs and pay copyright owners.

Artists will be given the option to join or not to join this business.

The situation is similar to the one faced by the music business with the emergence of YouTube, where people start using hit songs as a background for the videos they have made.

This led to years of legal debate over copyright infringement to reach an agreement that resulted in the music industry getting around $2 billion per year for clips made by users.

What do the artists think?

Several artists have complained about this trend. Drake responded that one song produced by AI with its voice was "end point".

The record label also recently attempted to remove the internet from the viral AI song and use its similarities.

In April, an AI-generated song featuring Drake and The Weeknd's mock voices was withdrawn from streaming service by Universal Music Group for 'violating content created with AI-generatives'.

The song went viral and when it was deleted, it played 600,000 times on Spotify and got 15 million views on TikTok and 275,000 views on YouTube.

The song, titled "Heart On My Sleeve," is believed to have created using AI programming trained with music from artists, something UMG claims to be a 'violation to our agreement and a violation of copyright law'.

However, not all musicians oppose AI. Canadian singer totaling it told artists they can use their voice in AI-generated songs with fair royalties, which is 50 percent.

The 35-year-old singer whose real name is Claire Boucher said that nothing is prohibited and her main goal is always to push for boundaries rather than just create songs that are pleasing to the ears. This was read by the Daily Mail.