AI “creations” get more and more popular now, making people think about the ethics of compilatory work, unprotected creativity, human redundancy, etc. And the industry thinks about lost profits.

Eminem fans have been using voice and text synthesisers for years to make a new son in Eminem style and share it on YouTube. Since AI systems are getting more and more powerful every day, there is no need to train your synth or perfect your code. A simple prompt is enough to make a freely available software come up with some lines that would sound just like Eminem. When David Guetta blasted AI-made Eminem’s intro at his show the public reaction varied from excitement to deep concern but ultimately, the discussion remained just that, the Internet discussion.

However, recently some official steps have been made. Not against David Guetta but against a popular YouTuber who posted an AI-generated “Eminem Cat Rap video”. User Grandayy informed his followers that Universal Music Publishing Group (UMPG), which represents Eminem’s business worldwide, filed a copyright strike against him and demands to take the video down:

Universal Music Group just decided to copyright strike my AI Eminem Cat Rap video. Usually they just claim and monetize videos like this but they really wanted AI Eminem to be taken down for some reason.

Artist and illustrator Drew Lewis, who writes extensively on ethical issues connected to the exploitative nature of AI-generated material, thinks that the music industry might be just the right force to stop or at least start regulating AI. He points out that record labels were able to halt P2P file-sharing technologies through their ruthless persecution of Napster. Now, they still have enormous financial resources and litigation teams to go after “AI models were unethically trained on Eminem’s creative work without his consent or compensation”.

However, recently hip hop artists started musing on how labels themselves might use AI-generated records to their advantage. KXNG Crooked started a discussion with his followers with a prompt:

Let’s say someone unknown recorded an entire album using the AI generated voice of a retired rapper and it sounded spot on.. would you listen?

It didn’t take long for the discussion to come to a point where the fantasy of labels paying artists for the likeness of their voice but completely controlling the content through technology didn’t sound that unbelievable anymore. Crook phrased it like this:

“Here’s your check! We have the best ghost writing programs available, best AI produced beats, we’ve generated an exact likeness of your voice and created your visuals with deep fake tech! Just sit there and relax in your life sustaining capsule! Album drops Friday”

And then, when Hove’s sound engineer dropped the digitally-generated vocals almost identical to Jay-Z’s voice, more hip hop artists articulated their concern. Young Guru wrote on his Instagram page:

I’ve been trying to tell everyone that this is where we are now with AI. For some reason this one got everyone’s attention. So what do we do. On one hand I’m well aware that you can’t stop technology. Once the genie is out of the box you can put him back in. On the other hand we have to protect the rights of the artist. Not only artist but everyone in society. People should not be able to take your Name, Image and Likeness without permission. We have to add the voice to this law.

So, while the industry on all levels is trying to figure out how to deal with new powers that technology brings, Eminem is the one whose legacy and likeness are being protected by his record label.

How do you feel about this situation?

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