The first AI music video that Jered Chavez, a 19-year-old student at the University of South Florida, posted to Instagram was a mind-bending one: Drake, Ye, and Kendrick Lamar singing “Fukashigi no Karte,” the closing song to Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai, an anime series popular on the internet. “I thought it was a cool concept,” Chavez said. “I’m clearly not the first one to start it, but what makes my page stand out is I try to put a little twist on it and add a comedy aspect.”
The student said that the comedic approach is designed in part to insulate him from risks associated with creating the work. “With this area of AI, there’s a lot of controversy and ethical concerns,” Chavez added. “Obviously, people that make this music and use this AI are taking someone’s likeness and, most of the time without permission, creating something that’s essentially putting words in people’s mouths.”
Chavez pointed out that this could be especially troublesome when it comes to the use of generative AI to replicate the voices of dead artists. “They’re not around to give their approval, and we don’t truly know what they would want,” he said. That doesn’t seem to bother those behind BohemianRhapsod.ai, which allows users to conduct a choir of 16 AI-generated versions of Freddie Mercury through perhaps Queen’s most famous hit.
While a consensus is forming that generative AI is potentially troublesome, no one really knows whether hobbyist creators are on shaky legal ground or not. pieawsome said he thinks of what he does as the equivalent of modding a game or producing fanfiction based on a popular book. “It’s our version of that,” he said. “That may be a good thing. It may be a bad thing. I don’t know. But it’s kind of an inevitable thing that was going to happen.”
Jonathan Bailey, former chief technology officer of Soundwide, a music technology company, has a different take. “I think you can make a persuasive argument that using AI to reanimate Jay-Z’s voice to have him rap or sing something he never created is kind of a form of identity theft,” he said.
“I’m not a lawyer,” Bailey added. Lawyer Donald Passman of Gang, Tyre, Ramer, Brown & Passman, Inc., who has represented major artists such as Adele and Taylor Swift throughout his storied career, declined to weigh in on the use of AI to imitate artists for this story. He said that he didn’t want to say anything inconsistent with a position he might later take in court. “It’s way too new,” Passman said of the tech.
Some music labels appear to already have made their minds up. Discord servers focusing on AI have reported that many YouTube channels that post AI-generated music have been hit with copyright takedowns. “I guess that’s one way of tackling it,” Chavez said. “But honestly, now this technology is out there, I don’t think people are ever going to stop using it.
“The responsibility lies in the judgment of the people that are making [AI-generated music],” he continued. “I try to use my best judgment. This is kind of new territory for everyone.”