The Weeknd and Drake-performed AI-generated song has been taken down from streaming services

Over the past two days, the AI-produced Drake and The Weeknd song has been removed from a number of social media sites, including Apple Music, Spotify, YouTube, Amazon Music, and others. The song questions whether or not current copyright laws apply to songs written in the artist's voice and without their consent.

According to Axios, the song, Heart On My Sleeve, was allegedly written by Ghostwriter977 who employed AI algorithms to mimic Drake and The Weeknd's vocals while also adding unique lyrics. Before being removed, the song received more than 275,000 views on YouTube and more than 625,000 listens on Spotify.

Universal Music Group (UMG), the artist's record label, expressed its disapproval with the song and demanded that it be taken down from all channels. Some social media platforms, such as TikTok, have not yet removed the music from their platforms, and UMG said that doing so would violate copyright rules.

The song, according to the label, "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." The article stated, "These incidents show why platforms have a fundamental moral obligation to forbid the exploitation of artists through the use of their services. The involvement of our platform partners in these issues is encouraging because it shows that they understand the need to contribute to the solution.

Sites are not held legally accountable for content uploaded by third parties in accordance with Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, but they are required to accede to legitimate copyright takedown requests. Since rules are still being developed for AI-generated music, it is still uncharted ground. According to Edward Klaris, managing partner at Klaris Law and a media attorney, "We're all waiting for some court's decision that's going to tell us whether training data is OK or not OK."

The Supreme Court might find that this isn't copyright infringement because it's transformative, he continued, "since they're using all the pre-existing songs to make new songs here. Alternately, they can state: "It is a copyright infringement. You cannot simply steal other people's tunes and develop new songs that sound the same.

The Weeknd and Drake have not commented on the artificial intelligence-generated song, but according to a recent Instagram story from the BBC, Drake declared, "This is the final straw AI," after a fan-made video of him rapping to the Ice Spice song Munch (Feeling U) surfaced.