‘Leverage technology,’ JAMMS advises as AI fake collab goes viral
Drake/The Weeknd ‘Heart on my Sleeve’ stirs discourse
Published:Thursday | April 20, 2023 | 12:42 AMYasmine Peru/Senior Gleaner Writer
Heart on my Sleeve, a convincing fake collaboration which clones the voices of Drake and The Weeknd, has taken the discourse about artificial intelligence (AI) far beyond just the doorstep of the global music industry. But rather than being fatalistic about the implications for the local music industry, General Manager of the Jamaica Music Society (JAMMS) Evon Mullings, is urging creators to use the technology as leverage.
Released last week, the AI-generated song went viral after being posted to platforms such as YouTube, TikTok, Apple Music, Spotify, Deezer and Tidal, but Heart on my Sleeve has since been pulled from many of these platforms. However, the numbers of views and plays in mere days has been astounding. The TikTok views came in at 10 million, according to TechCrunch’s tally; there were 230,000 plays on YouTube; and, news website Music Business Worldwide reported more than 625,000 plays on Spotify. Heart on my Sleeve was actually streamed 629,439 times before it was pulled from Spotify.
Created by an artiste known only as Ghostwriter – who appears on TikTok covered in a white sheet and wearing sunglasses – he or she gets credit on Spotify but Drake and The Weeknd’s names are not included in the artist or track descriptions. On YouTube, however, both artistes’ names appear in the subtitle, as (Drake AI Song feat. The Weeknd).
On TikTok, the creator of Heart on my Sleeve commented that he or she has been “a ghostwriter for years and got paid close to nothing just for major labels to profit. The future is here”. The text on the video text states, “I used AI to make a drake song ft. the weeknd.”
Record label Universal Music Group (UMG), which is the publisher for Drake and The Weeknd through one of its subsidiaries, issued a statement last Monday in response to a request for a comment from Variety .
“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 recognise they need to be part of the solution.”
Earlier this year, JAMMS the licensing agency/collecting society which manages the broadcasting and public performance rights of its members, hosted its Business of Music Seminar Vol 6 at The Jamaica Pegasus hotel. One of the themes was the effects of artificial intelligence (AI) on the music industry.
In his introduction, Mullings stated, “Artificial intelligence ... you are going to be hearing that word over and over again today. It is something which is imminent ... and is has begun to be disruptive. In our own field it is going to become impactful, adverse unless we are going to leverage it to our benefit.”
With Heart on my Sleeve making headlines, Mullings reiterated the “need to be more nimble”.
“We sounded the alarm, in February of this year at our music conference about the imminent and disruptive force of generative AI,” Mullings said in an interview.
“Despite the current high profile cases of Drake and The Weeknd, Rihanna and also JayZ, our own local music industry is unlikely to escape the nefarious use of AI technology. Our own artistes and record producers will need to become constantly vigilant and be prepared to act swiftly to demand take downs of AI music from online retail platforms which has infringed on their image and likeness through duplication of their vocals, trademarked slangs, copyrighted works etc. Some chat bots can already do extremely good patois conversations and the technology is so advanced that replicating or duplicating the vocals of our Jamaican artistes and writing songs in our style is not insurmountable for AI technology,” he said.
The JAMMS general manager pointed out that AI also present opportunities and urged creators need to leverage AI tools to their advantage. He cited examples such as using AI “to aid in writing better songs, create high quality low cost promotional videos, curate playlists of your music for different markets based on AI information about where your have particular presence, and possibly generate your own AI music content and market it as such”.
“There are opportunities so creators should not feel overwhelmed nor fatalistic about the possible adverse impact of AI technology, but instead leverage the technology, as we have always done, as innovators,” Mullings said.