On the weekend of April 15, 2023, a video containing the song “Heart on My Sleeve” featuring the voices of superstar artists Drake and The Weeknd went viral and reached millions of views. Of course, as it was later revealed, Drake and The Weeknd had nothing to do with this production. Instead, the person who goes by the pseudonym “Ghostwriter” who published the song claims that he wrote the song, but using generative artificial intelligence (AI) he mimicked the voices of the two artists. clarified. The video was removed from a major music streaming service after Drake and The Weeknd’s representative, Universal Music Group, filed a copyright claim.
This development raises some issues, mainly copyright, but it can also affect trademark and publicity rights. First, assuming a ghostwriter (not an AI) actually wrote the song as an original work, it could be protected as a musical composition.
Song performance, on the other hand, poses a more complex issue. To train the AI to mimic the voices of Drake and The Weeknd, it is speculated that the ghostwriter uploaded copies of pieces performed by his two artists into the AI system. Works created by AI systems using artificial voices form the basis of copyright infringement claims, as they may be considered derivative works of genuine uploaded songs created without a license is this copy act.
In addition to copyright issues, other rights may be involved. Drake and The Weeknd may have unfair competition allegations in that mimicking their well-known voices amounted to a false designation of origin under Section 1125 of the Lanham Act. I have. Statutory Publicity Rights of California, Cal. Citizen. Code § 3344 limits the protection of the human voice to genuine voices, not imitations. However, given this issue, it is not difficult to foresee reinterpretations or legislative amendments to overcome its limitations. In any event, common law publicity rights available in California and some other states may provide cause of action.
Piracy is only one side of the coin when it comes to AI. Copyright is another. The Copyright Office recently clarified that a copyright applicant must disclose whether some or all elements of a work submitted for registration were created using her AI. A registration guide has been issued. The Office states that only elements created by human authors are copyrightable. For example, if there is an application claiming her AI program as the author of the entire piece, the application will be rejected. This issue is currently being contested in a lawsuit by computer scientist Stephen Thaler. He’s trying to overcome the copyright office’s refusal to file for a work titled “A Recent Entrance to Paradise” that identifies Thaler’s Creativity Machine AI system as the author.
In another example, an individual artist, Christina Kashtanova, applied for registration as the author of a graphic novel in which Kashtanova wrote the text, but the drawings were generated by an AI program at Kashtanova’s prompts. However, Kashtanova did not disclose this in her copyright application, instead claiming she was the author of her entire work. After receiving registration for her work, Kashtanova revealed her ruse on the Internet. In response, the patent office canceled her original registration and issued two registrations for her instead. One is text only, the other her one is text and drawing placement. However, the drawings themselves were generated by her AI, so they were not eligible for registration.
Using AI to create or infringe copyright raises many legal issues. If you have any questions, please consult a Vorys attorney.
