Streaming services pull AI-generated Drake-inspired song, but it's not clear the musician has a legitimate copyright claim



The steel-driving man John Henry of American legend attempted to beat the machine and lost. Today, new technologies are steaming past America's top musicians and up the charts, but instead of railway ties, they are dropping beats.

Multiple streaming platforms have taken down a new viral AI-generated song featuring vocals reminiscent of both Drake's and the Weeknd's respective styles.

Although the musicians and their parent label Universal Music Group appear to have gotten their way in silencing the track, it's not clear whether they have a legitimate copyright claim or the right to do so. There are other recently released songs incorporating AI-generated celebrity sound-alikes that have been easy targets for complaints and removal since they contained borrowed instrumentation, lyrics, or other components that were copyright-protected.

For instance, Rihanna's voice was mimicked in a transmogrified version of the Beyoncé hit "Cuff It." Even if Rihanna proved incapable of taking legal action, Beyoncé and her label certainly were in a position to do so.

The 2-minute, 14-second song that made waves this week is, however, an original composition.
"Heart on My Sleeve" was created by an artist who goes by Ghostwriter977 and has over 2.5 million likes on TikTok.
Music Business Worldwide reported that the song is novel in composition and lyrics, but incorporates AI-generated vocals reminiscent of the voices of Drake and the Weeknd, whose real names are Aubrey Drake Graham and Abel Makkonen Tesfaye.
Michael Inouye, an analyst at ABI Research, told CNN that "AI could also have generated most of the song, lyrics and replicated the artists again based on the training data set and any prompts given to direct the AI model."
Roberto Nickson, the entrepreneur and designer behind Eluna AI, evidenced how easy it was to emulate a celebrity's voice with AI in a recent Twitter video:
\u201cAnd just like that. The music industry is forever changed.\n\nI recorded a verse, and had a trained AI model of Kanye replace my vocals.\n\nThe results will blow your mind. Utterly incredible.\u201d
— Roberto Nickson (@Roberto Nickson) 1679796877
UMG complained and successfully had Ghostwriter977's song all but scrubbed from the internet.
It was removed this week from the streaming platforms Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, Amazon, SoundCloud, Tidal, Deezer, and TikTok. According to Axios, the tune had over 600,000 plays on Spotify and 275,000 views on YouTube before it was taken down on the respective platforms. Altogether, it was reportedly streamed over 15 million times.
\u201cAI Drake + The Weeknd banger \u201cheart on my sleeve\u201d at over 250k streams on Spotify already\u201d
— Jenny AI (@Jenny AI) 1681675257
The lyrics for the song have even been deleted from websites like Genius.
UMG said in a statement that its "success has been, in part, due to embracing new technology and putting it to work for our artists–as we have been doing with our own innovation around AI for some time already."
"With that said, however, the training of generative AI using our artists’ music (which represents both a breach of our agreements and a violation of copyright law) as well as the availability of infringing content created with generative AI on DSPs, begs the question as to which side of history all stakeholders in the music ecosystem want to be on: the side of artists, fans and human creative expression, or on the side of deep fakes, fraud and denying artists their due compensation," added the corporate giant.
Axios has stressed that generative AI, whether the product be sonic or visual, is a "legal minefield," particularly in this case where Drake and the Weeknd neither wrote nor sang the song.
There are presently lawsuits tackling the issue of AI systems using copyrighted works as inputs.
For instance, Getty Images filed a lawsuit in January against AI art generator Stable Diffusion, alleging that the company copied 12 million images to train its AI model "without permission ... or compensation," reported the Verge.
Getty said in a statement, "It is Getty Images’ position that Stability AI unlawfully copied and processed millions of images protected by copyright and the associated metadata owned or represented by Getty Images absent a license to benefit Stability AI’s commercial interests and to the detriment of the content creators."
The results of such legal actions may set a precedent applicable to the release of songs like Ghostwriter977's, where potentially copyrighted content served to train AI models to create a novel product.

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National conservatives win decisive victory in Italy — Giorgia Meloni set to become country's first female prime minister



Giorgia Meloni is set to become Italy's first female prime minister, with early official results confirming exit poll suggestions that her national conservative coalition, known as Centro Destra, has won enough seats to gain a parliamentary majority. The Fratelli d'Italia, which Meloni founded in 2012, won just 4.4% of the vote in the 2018 election. It is now Italy's largest party, with over 26%. The coalition to which it belongs received over 43% of the vote in Sunday's election.

Upon learning of her victory, Meloni told supporters that "Italy has chosen us, and we won't betray her" and that her party will "govern for everyone."

The winning coalition, which will now run the EU's third-largest economy, is composed of Meloni's Fratelli d'Italia (Brothers of Italy), former Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini's Lega, and former Prime Minister Silvia Berlusconi's Forza Italia.

This victory comes just weeks after the rightist Sweden Democrats made substantial gains in the Nordic country's national elections with the second-largest share of the vote.

\u201cNon tradiremo la vostra fiducia. Siamo #pronti a risollevare l\u2019Italia\n\nGRAZIE! \ud83c\uddee\ud83c\uddf9\u201d
— Giorgia Meloni \ud83c\uddee\ud83c\uddf9 \u0646 (@Giorgia Meloni \ud83c\uddee\ud83c\uddf9 \u0646) 1664153608

Meloni's views, Italian implications

According to Giovanni Capoccia, professor of politics at the University of Oxford, although Meloni's coalition lacks a supermajority to change Italy's constitution unilaterally, it does hold a majority in both Italy's Senate and the Chamber of Deputies.

Rosa Balfour, director of Carnegie Europe, suggested on the BBC that the three keywords best used to describe what Meloni stands for are "ultraconservative values, anti-immigration and nationalism."

In 2019, Meloni gave a speech to supporters in Rome, declaring: "I'm Giorgia, I'm a woman, I'm a mother, I'm Italian, I'm Christian! You won't take that away from me!"

Meloni has previously stated she:

  • supports a naval blockade preventing illegal aliens from the Near East and Northern Africa from flooding into Italy;
  • opposes gay adoption and the LGBT lobby;
  • opposed COVID-19 passports;
  • believes in the defense of "national interests and popular sovereignty";
  • "a just relationship between government and taxpayers," emphasizing economic freedom;
  • seeks to "protect religious and moral values,"
  • says "Yes to the culture of life, no the abyss of death";
  • says "No to the violence of Islam, yes to safe borders";
  • would "pull out of China's Belt and Road Initiative"; and
  • would "stay united" with the rest of the EU as it relates to Ukraine versus Russia;

Luca Tomini, a political scientist at Free Brussels University, told EuroNews that "what we need to expect is a more Eurosceptic position of the Italian government on several issues. There will be probably a realignment of Italy along with the government of Poland especially."

The European Union has a fraught relationship with Hungary and Poland, particularly as the eastern European nations have pushed back against Brussels' LGBT policies and emphasized the priority of their own laws and sovereignty.

Earlier this month, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, when asked about the Italian election, claimed, "If things go in a difficult direction — and I've spoken about Hungary and Poland — we have the tools," intimating Brussels could financially penalize EU governments that are regarded as in violation of central policy.

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki responded, calling Leyen's claims "scandalous," suggesting, "She said Brussels had the tools to discipline Italy if it created a government that would not be in favor of Brussels. ... Is this the Europe we want? ... The Eurocrats in Brussels dictate what the government should be?"

At the 2020 National Conservatism conference in Rome, in a speech she dedicated to Pope John Paul II and former President Ronald Reagan, Meloni stated that one of the great challenges "facing us today is defending national identity and the very existence of nation-states as the sole means of safeguarding peoples' sovereignty and freedom."

"We did not fight against, and defeat, communism in order to replace it with a new internationalist regime," said Meloni, "but to permit independent nation-states once again to defend the freedom, identity, and sovereignty of their peoples."

Although Meloni and her coalition have been characterized as fascistic, she suggests they are guardians of democracy. "Whether the false democrats like it or not," she said, "national conservatives in every latitude are actually the only real democrats, because it is only defending the nation-state that we defend the political sovereignty that belongs to the citizens of that state."

Giorgia Meloni: God, Homeland, Family | NatCon Rome 2020 youtu.be

At a 2022 CPAC convention, Meloni told an American audience: "Our individual freedom is under attack, our rights are under attack, the sovereignty of our nations is under attack, the prosperity and well-being of our families is under attack, our children's education is under attack. Faced with this ... the only way to be rebellious is to preserve who we are, the only way to be rebellious is to be conservative."

Leftist panic and outrage

As with the implications of the Swedish election, the results of Sunday's Italian election have not been well received by the European and international left.

Enrico Letta, the leader of Italy's leftist Democratic Party, described the success enjoyed by Meloni's alliance as a "sad day for Italy and Europe." Letta indicated he will now seek continued leadership of the party as of its next congress.

Pietro Castelli Gattinara, associate professor of political communication at Université Libre de Bruxelles, told Vox that the rise of popular rightist movements in Europe is "not that different from what we have been seeing in the U.S. with the radicalization of the Republican Party, what we are seeing in India with President [Narendra] Modi, what we have seen with Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil."

Gattinara suggested such political gains are, in part, connected to and resultant of a "mainstreaming of far-right ideas, especially with respect to some topics such as ethnic diversity, immigration, and gender issues."

Meloni as prime minister will, said Gattinara, "be a reboot of the Berlusconi years ... but with a much stronger attention to some of the issues that are at the core of our far-right ideologies, I think, in particular, in terms of gender equality, in terms of civil rights, abortion rights, in terms of migration, in terms of religion."

Some have already taken to social media to urge resistance to the new democratically elected government.

Italian writer Roberto Saviano wrote: "I read #Saviano in trend because the voters of Meloni 'invite' me to leave the country. These are warnings. This is Italy that awaits us. They are already drawing up a first black list of enemies of the homeland, in spite of those who said that Fascism is something else."

\u201cLeggo #Saviano in tendenza perch\u00e9 gli elettori di Meloni mi \u201cinvitano\u201d a lasciare il Paese. Questi sono avvertimenti. Questa \u00e8 l\u2019Italia che ci aspetta. Stanno gi\u00e0 stilando una prima lista nera di nemici della patria, alla faccia di chi diceva che il Fascismo \u00e8 un\u2019altra cosa.\u201d
— Roberto Saviano (@Roberto Saviano) 1664182461

Whereas some have claimed that the conservative victory in Italy signals "the elected return of Fascism," others, including Sara Gonzales, BlazeTV host of "The News and Why It Matters," have indicated that this is instead part of a trend of "People all over the world ... waking up!"

\u201cThis is what a red wave in Italy looks like. People all over the world are waking up!\nhttps://t.co/FwjxasTj0p\u201d
— Sara Gonzales (@Sara Gonzales) 1664195268

Officer involved in Breonna Taylor's death sends message to fellow officers slamming protesters, FBI: 'Don't put up with their s**t'



A Louisville Metropolitan Police Department officer sent an email to approximately 1,000 fellow officers at 2 a.m. Tuesday criticizing protesters, city officials, department leadership, and the FBI as he awaits a decision on whether he will be charged in Breonna Taylor's death, Vice News reported.

The email, written by Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly and obtained by Vice News' Roberto Aram Ferdman, foreshadowed a "rough" period to come as the city braces for potential unrest if Mattingly, Officer Myles Cosgrove, and Sgt. Brett Hankison are not charged in Taylor's death this week.

New: LMPD Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly (who is being investigated as part of Breonna Taylor’s case) sent an email to aro… https://t.co/SZEgX3jHLd
— Roberto Aram Ferdman (@Roberto Aram Ferdman)1600779325.0

"No matter the ineptitude in upper command or the mayor's office, this is one of the greatest jobs on earth," Mattingly wrote. "With that being said, these next few days are going to be tough. They are going to be long, they are going to be frustrating. They will put a tremendous amount of stress on your families."

The Louisville Metro PD declared a state of emergency Monday in advance of an expected grand jury decision on whether to charge the three officers who executed the no-knock search warrant on Taylor's home the night they shot and killed her. Hankison was fired, but Mattingly and Cosgrove are still with the department on administrative leave.

Mattingly told the other officers in the email that they didn't deserve the abuse they will potentially face from protesters in coming days.

"You DO NOT DESERVE to be in this position," Mattingly wrote. "The position that allows thugs to get in your face and yell, curse, and degrade you. Throw bricks, bottles, and urine on you and expect you to do nothing. It goes against EVERYTHING we were all taught in the academy. The position that if you make a mistake, during one of the most stressful times in your career, the department and FBI (who aren't cops and would piss their pants if they had to hold the line) go after you for civil rights violations. Your civil rights mean nothing, but the criminal has total autonomy."

Mattingly defended the officers' actions the night Taylor was killed. After the officers broke in the door of Taylor's apartment, Taylor's boyfriend shot at them, saying he believed it was a home invasion, and they returned fire with approximately 20 shots. Five of them hit Taylor, killing her.

"Regardless of the outcome today or Wednesday, I know we did the legal, moral, and ethical thing that night," Mattingly wrote. "It's sad how the good guys are demonized, and criminals are canonized. Put that aside for a while, keep your focus and do your jobs that you are trained and capable of doing. Don't put up with their s**t, and go home to those lovely families and relationships."

The officers had a warrant for Taylor because she was believed to be connected to her ex-boyfriend's drug trafficking operation. No drugs or money were found at her home.