It’s time to revisit the issue of AI-generated music. A fake AI-generated album titled UTOP-AI, supposedly sang by popular artist Travis Scott, was uploaded to YouTube and SoundCloud recently. Upon realizing the copyright infringement, Warner Music Group swiftly removed the album, claiming the tens of thousands of plays it accumulated in its short lifetime.
The album was created with the help of AI Hub, a Discord server dedicated to AI music producers with over 36,000 members. It provides a platform for users to implement voice models based on the likes of Don Toliver, Frank Ocean and Alicia Keys, with some AI-generated songs getting uploaded onto the server’s YouTube channel. The 16-song album, which featured vocals from other big names such as Drake, Baby Keem and Playboi Carti, was made by Qo – a moderator of the Discord server – and another admin of the server known as Rec, who thought of the project as a joke.
This case is seen as a warning sign by the powerful music industry as it is in full protection of the copyrighted material they own. Major labels have been pressuring streaming services such as Spotify to monitor the content that gets uploaded to their platforms, as AI-generated music raised concerns over copyright infringement and royalties. Whether or not AI-generated music infringement will be taken more seriously in the future remains to be seen, but for the moment the power houses of music have implemented their rule.
The individual mentioned in the article is Qo – a moderator of AI Hub, a Discord server dedicated to AI music producers. Qo, alongside Rec, was behind the creation of the AI-generated Travis Scott album.
The company mentioned in this article is Warner Music Group. Warner Music Group took immediate action when they realized a fake AI-generated Travis Scott album had been uploaded to their streaming platforms, claiming the tens of thousands of plays it had gathered in its short lifetime. Warner Music flagged the album with copyright infringement, which caused the removal of the album shortly after.
