Frank Ocean fans have longed for new music from the enigmatic artist since the release of his “Blonde” album in 2016. Desperate for any information regarding unreleased material, some of Ocean’s most devoted followers have turned to Discord to access leaked songs. Unfortunately, this led one scammer to make thousands of dollars by peddling bogus tunes produced by artificial intelligence (AI).
According to Motherboard, a supposed screenshot on Reddit showed that moderators of the server made an announcement that almost all the tracks being sold by the unnamed scammer were fake. This person, who goes by the username “mourningassassin,” was reported to have earned upwards of $13,000 CAD off their deceptive practice. To date, Frank Ocean’s label has not issued a statement regarding the matter, nor have any of those involved released further comment.
The incident puts into perspective the size of the impact AI-generated music has on the industry, as well as its ever-advancing capability to imitate reality. This was evident in early April when a fake collaboration between Drake, The Weeknd, and AI went viral. Although it only managed to rack up 1,423,000 US streams before being pulled, the faux duet proved that AI can produce recordings that sound sufficiently convincing.
In line with the trend, some well-known artists like Grimes have become open to the idea of AI-generated tracks utilizing their voices. She even developed software to facilitate the production of AI-made music using her vocals, and pledged to share royalties if the songs turn out successful.
Labels have pressured streaming services like Spotify to crack down on AI-generated tunes, leading to the removal of tens of thousands of them from its platform. But with the increase of leaked music circulating in platforms like Discord, it is of great importance for users to be careful and to take extra precaution when partaking in any activity involving music sharing.
