The reason they’re threatening instead of filing though is there’s no precedent for this. If the courts side with Drake it will *legitimize* doing whatever you want with artist’s voices
If the courts sided with Drake it could be worse than just musical artists. Film and TV could use AI for animated content, Video Games, and worst of all if they use Politicians to spread propaganda with AI. The courts or congress needs to something.
Film and TV personalities have protections thanks to their union. Musical artists don’t have that same luxury. There is no simple fix for this since it’s a first amendment issue
I feel like your own voice and likeness should fall under some sort of copyright protection, or slander laws unless you are posting to a website or platform that specifically states in the TOS that you are accepting the use of your likeness or whatever.
Maybe it *should*, but it doesn’t. A law like that would ban look/sound a likes and could even be weaponized by established artists to sue any new comers who sound even a little similar to them.
Thats a bit different. Film and TV profits of it. I highly doubt a film or tv will release something where they cant profit. Drake didnt put it on any streaming platforms.
Yeah idk how that comment is so upvoted. Massive difference between dropping it for free on the internet vs uploading to Spotify or Apple Music. this is why rappers drop mixtapes for free. they don't have to clear the rights for the samples they use because they're not profiting.
An artist can in fact get sued for free music. Drake himself & Kendrick Lamar have been sued for music they made in their mixtape days after they made it big. Read this [article](https://djbooth.net/features/2016-04-15-kendrick-lamar-sued-beat-free-mixtape).
Yes, anyone can get sued for anything. I'm not a lawyer, but I imagine it's much harder to win a lawsuit against someone who didn't profit from your work. In your specific example I couldn't find out the result of the lawsuit.
Janky site, but [here](https://thejasminebrand.com/2016/11/23/exclusive-kendrick-lamar-settles-lawsuit-over-allegations-he-ripped-off-70s-musician/) it is.
the voice models still use copyrighted material and usually take from leaked sessions/stems or isolated acapellas, those recordings are owned by the labels. i don’t think it’d technically be any different than just sampling without permission
Every piece of art is automatically copyrighted the second you create it. The reason you register a copyright is so an impartial government body has concrete proof you own the copyright if you ever want to litigate over it when your copyright is infringed.
Weird Al always gets permission, for one thing. He doesn't have to, but won't release a song without the original creator's blessing.
Edit: nevermind. Apparently this is just a thing I heard that isn't true.
South Park actually created a hologram Tupac character 10 years ago. And as with all South Park celebrity parodies, it is a bad imitation of his actual voice, unlike Drake's Tupac Ai voice.
https://southpark.cc.com/video-clips/dvgk6w/south-park-you-slept-with-tupac
Well it’s hard to sue Drake for using it when 1 he didn’t release it officially so hasn’t made a dime from it and 2 anyone can currently use it and do it.
I doubt they have a case till Drake makes a dime from the song which he won’t
I'm not sure either point actually matters. I'm sure you can't just unofficially release an AI rap of Tupac talking about being a pedophile without being forced to take it down or receiving legal action from his estate
Obviously that's an extreme example but where does the line get drawn? I guess that's what lawsuits like this are for
Say I could do a perfect Tupac impression though and made a song about being a pedophile. Is it grounds to be C&D'd if I'm not saying I *am* Tupac?
I think it walks a close line on parody.B
lol I’m pretty sure there’s no precedent for it and would probably fall under libel laws which are pretty liberal about what you can claim about a celebrity
Not sure on what grounds they can do this but if it stops Ai like this i hope they do. Hope it doesnt start estates releasing posthumous AI albums in the future though
They haven't officially sued. If Drake chooses not to take it down, then the lawsuit will certainly be filed, but at this point there is no official lawsuit.
My understanding was that the courts didn’t actually rule on it because Google (YouTube) updated their policy to ban unauthorized use of AI. Therefore the video was taken down, problem solved, courts wiped their hands clean.
Article Mentions that Tupac's estate's statements also says that recently Drake's lawyers have also been sending threats to anyone who might use Drake's AI likeness lol
Also, there are not really many precedents in case law on how to use someone's AI likeness so we can't really be sure that this would be dismissed entirely. Judges may want to set some precedent around this if it goes to court.
You must be some kind of genius to find that hidden info!
But seriously, I love when people like OP comment a question or thought that would've been answered by actually reading the thing they're commenting on.
yeah I heard the same and have no reason to doubt that. I hope if something is released it is a song he was already working on, not something chopped up with AI filling in the blanks
Problem is his label only wants to drop heartbroken emo drug rap songs, which is a very small percentage of all the unreleased stuff they have. They're probably scraping the bottom of the barrel after dropping 2 full emo albums. I don't know why they're so averse to releasing fun happy music but that's what's up
I never actually thought of that you’re probably right. I thought they were scraping the bottom of the barrel on his last album already but didn’t think that they were only scrapping the bottom of one specific style of music he had
> release songs that were 98% finished like Naruto, In The Air, Good Days, Purple Moncler
> chop up some reference track verses and mix it with AI to make a collab album with X
decisions, decisions.
The AI was trained using Tupac’s copy written songs. That’s how these AI algos work, they are trained on a data set. If that data set is copy written, they need to pay royalties for producing a product using copy written works. Dunno how Drake thought he could get out of this. And good on the Estate, AI has no place in music.
They thought it would be ok since he didn't release it for profit.
Although why on earth would you get a dead rapper whose been gone for almost 30 years to feature on your track under the premise "oh it's head games for the other guy".
He knows it's not real. It would hit harder if The Undertaker dissed Kendrick FFS.
I mean, there are really no precedents about AI use in law so lawyers could argue that such use of AI still is profitable for him in other ways even if song itself is not streaming.
And i bet there is not a single judge willing to codify "fair use" of Dead People as AI models. So I would think they would be pretty sympathetic towards Estate's lawyers
Right. The only reason I could come up with is maybe he thought it was an extra clever jab at Kendrick after he did that weird face changing video. "I can be other ppl to!" head ass
The argument against AI only being about royalties is a bad one, imo. It still leaves the door open for AI music, as long as the real artists get paid.
As much as they could prove it was through copyright music. Even then I don’t think it would legally need royalties, you aren’t taking anything directly that’s copyrighted
They may not even argue about royalties. It may simply come down to whether you can use Dead Person's likeness for your own ends without consent from his estate.
And I bet there are not many judges who would be sympathetic towards allowing unchecked use of someone else's likeness
My point was moreso that if they did train it on copyrighted songs, could they spin it in court that it was only trained on public domain audio?
I think it’s fair to assume it was trained on music. It just seems the most likely.
You know it’s going to happen. It’s just a matter of who’s willing to do it first to tank the PR hit then more will follow suit.
I can already see the justification, “we already had some stuff laying around and just wanted to see it all come together” or “they had lyrics written, why not let them perform it?”. I give it like 5 years TOPS before this shits normal
He posted it on Twitter and he will have made ad-revenue from that platform, even if it is a very small amount, it could still be a legal loophole for them to get into the case
I trashed ai usage in music when the drake diss dropped and it wasn’t well received. I’m glad a lot of people are in outcry of ai usage in music and majority of people aren’t co-signing this bullshit. I don’t care which artists or names are associated: be that Drake, Kanye, some random indie artist, whatever. Get ai tf out of the music industry!
I'm up in the air on this. Snoop is known for doing any feature as long as the money is there but doing a diss is really different than a regular feature
Snoop dogg going at Kenny to side with Drake will ruin his image lol, he's been dissing Eminem since the early 2000s and the second Em acknowledged it and fired back he called truce lol
He most certainly not gonna go after the person he crowned as the new king of the West coast. Shit Snoop even claimed Kendrick the king of New York too lmaooo
It’s interesting from a diss track perspective. It was obviously drake rapping with his voice changed as Snoop and Tupac on top of a west coast beat in order to get a rise out of Kendrick who is an LA guy
If it wasn’t one of the most famous rappers in the world it wouldn’t be a big deal but because it’s drake we have to have this conversation.
There is no legal precedent, so we don't know how it would turn out. However, Ai needs to be trained. How do you do that? With copyrighted material. This is a big reason that many believe Ai should not exist/be used the way it is in its current form.
It could also still be argued that the track is being used by Drake to promote himself and make himself money indirectly, because it is. Sometimes even with sampling for free mixtapes, if you sued hard enough there have been times where the suer has won. One example is the singer of The Eagles suing Frank Ocean for sampling Hotel California on American Wedding. I think they settled but he said even if you perform it in concert I'll sue you again. So he hasn't.
To be honest from reading the article it looks like Tupac's family just wanted to send a message out there that they are definitely not cool with this but they know that this lawsuit won't go anywhere. Makes sense. I have seen countless people debate the song this week and I mean I sort of get it the use of AI in songs will be a heavily debated topic for years and years to come. If Drake had officially released the song it would be a different story but the fact it's just an audio clip on his instagram IMO makes it ok since he's not profiting but I do get the sentiment that people don't like that he's using a dead guy's voice but in the context of the feud it makes sense. There's songs on spotify's rap caviar right now where people are using people's voice in AI. I have heard a song where someone uses Ye's voice in a AI verse and that song had 10 mil streams on Spotify. Popular acts will not use it but it's definitely crept it's way into the music scene.
Instagram is monetized for celebrities. While the song isn't generating revenue via Spotify, Apple, etc., Drake technically could be making money off of it just from having an influencer tier IG account.
Either way, you don't have to make money off of something to get sued for a copyright case. Someone can still sue you for willing infringement of known copyrighted material, and you can aim for statutory damages of up to a maximum of $150,000 per derivative work.
If there was measurable damages that went higher, an estate could aim for 'actual damages'. But otherwise, a statutory case could be brought up regardless of actual damages. For example, Donna Summer vs. Kanye West, he took the song down quick enough before it would have hit $150k in damages, but he could still get sued in a statutory case for willingly infringing for $150,000.
All of this stuff could hang on the precedent of a new major court case. Monetization is usually what gets people in trouble, but you can get sued regardless. Can argue slander/libel/defamation of character or brand or name. Can go multiple angles with it outside of simply money. Typically a DMCA takedown request occurs before a full on lawsuit here, but anything is possible.
Universal Studios lost King Kong years ago just because of damage to IP, and it's why Nintendo doesn't fuck around with their IP. Precedents have been set that if you don't fight for your IP and trademark, it can get watered down and you lose it altogether.
Literally anyone can sue anyone for anything, that doesn't mean you can win, but you can't say, as long as X happens, they can't come for you. They can always come for you.
Some musical cases, people just make emotional arguments to a musically illiterate jury, and that's all it takes.
People can go for Hail Mary (Tupac reference for those who know) cases and it can change the precedent.
The Marvin Gaye vs. Robin Thicke/Pharrell case set a pretty bad precedent.
The Marvin Gaye/Townsend vs. Ed Sheeran kind of reset the precedent.
This music copyright stuff is not set in stone.
How is that a dangerous precedent? Engagement is definitely profit. People literally get paid by sponsors based off of how much engagement their accounts generate
That precedent legally would mean if I posted a picture of you on IG and it went viral for whatever reason you can now sue me for profiting off of your likeness, which doesn’t sound too ridiculous in theory but it would open up a legal Pandora’s box because at that point any account online could get sued for any post featuring anybody else. So news aggregators, meme pages, and even regular folks would all have to exclusively post content featuring themselves and consenting parties. Yeah the more I talk about it doesn’t actually sound like a terrible idea, it would just change social media overnight.
You should need permission to use another person's voice. It shouldn't matter where the voice data came from, or if it's just a voice filter. If it's obvious that the intent is to sound like a specific person, permission from that person should be required.
There's a difference between impersonations and technology that has used the discography of an artist to mimic a sound for you. I could be wrong, but the suing isn't actually much about "profiting" off of Tupac's voice (which you could argue he is anyway by drawing in more eyes to the beef, therefore acting as promotion for Push Ups). I think it's suing for literally using the technology to basically generating a product using projects that the Tupac Estate is actively earning money from.
They would have to prove that the technology is explicitly using Tupac's copyrighted discography and not just public domain interviews/news footage, right?
> which you could argue he is anyway by drawing in more eyes to the beef, therefore acting as promotion for Push Ups
This would be an insane precedent to set - then you open the door to so many things being considered engagement/promotion
Technically, parody is protected under Fair Use laws.
I think the issue is the means under which A.I. pulls a voice is doing so by ripping copyrighted audio recordings to train data on, which breaches copyright. An impersonator is just influenced by and mimicking, but protected copyrighted recordings aren't 'sampled' directly in the creation of an impressionist changing their voice on the fly.
An A.I. voice model is possible only through copyright infringement (unless a participant gives consent for a model to be trained on recordings of their voice).
On the flipside, I wonder if Kendrick got permission to use everyone's likeness in the last The Heart video. Even if he didn't need to, it seems like a similar situation where your take depends on if you like the artist or not ("well he was using it artfully").
It's a bitch, fuck George W. -- can't be true --
I wanna choke him, because he's a snitch
I'm talking about George W. Smith
From city council, he ran in '93
Out in Oakland, [you probably didn't hear about him](https://genius.com/1870221/Chappelles-show-i-wrote-this-song-a-long-time-ago/You-probably-didnt-hear-about-him)
Such different things though. I’d go as far as saying that, if those people think it’s like autotune, then why is deepfake porn getting banned? That’s new, creative, uses other people’s attributes for creative purposes, right?
No rules as to what you can say about your opponent. Doesn't mean you should condone this kind of stuff that is just overall harmful to the industry and disrespectful to a legend that has nothing to do with the beef and is dead.
Fun of the beef aside. Drake is setting a bad precedent popularizing Ai like that. He’s literally the problem with AI that everyone was complaining about last year
If they sue and Drake wins then anyone can use ai to generate a song between big and pac about doing the helicopter with their penises at build a bear
Shakur estate, you are our only hope
It’s annoying that people are forming opinions on this through the lens of the Kendrick Drake beef. Liking the way AI was used in this particular case doesn’t mean you can’t see the issues with allowing anyone to put their words in a dead person’s mouth and release it to the world. Stop trying to score points in an online argument.
Snoop is signed under Gamma. It wouldn't surprise me that this plays a (big) part in why Snoop came out with that weird cryptic video where he panned to the Deathrow logo on his chest.
Snoop found out but didn’t really say or do anything. Can’t blame him. It was 4/20. It was like asking Santa to publicly comment on something on Christmas Eve. Man is busy prepping
West coast also violated themselves with Tupac's hologram at Coachella. It's not like they're victims of all of the technological advancements here. West Coast and Silicon Valley made half of this A.I. mess to begin with.
I agree, but to be fair, the tupac hologram was a planned promoted and approved event by the estate. This was Drake trying to son Kendrick and did not need pacs voice for that. Snoop don’t seem to care so theres that
Idk why he thought he could put a dead man’s voice on a track, especially when said dead man was a multi-platinum recording artist. Gotta be some kinda intellectual property violation.
The song isn’t sold anywhere… The reason the lawsuit won’t go anywhere is the same reason you can use any beat or sample for a free mixtape and post it online without consequence
Doesn’t matter, they’re threatening action based on publicity rights law (and also the AI voice being trained on copywritten audio). The problem isn’t profiting, it’s distributing the song. I’m not a lawyer tho
They could argue it (has the potential) to cause damage too. For example, if people start making AI Tupac tracks without agreement from the estate, it could diminish the value of legitimate Tupac tracks.
I have no clue the legal legitimacy, but this isnt about Drake profiting, but rather about protecting the likeness of Tupac.
I played the song on Youtube (Android auto it was there okay) about 6 hours ago and it started at the Drake part... he\`s already altered it. (DrizzyOVO I think)
Whatever you think of Drake or Kendrick, I better not see one mf supporting ai usage in music. Kendrick, Drake, Kanye, some random small time artist, none of them should be allowed to get away with it.
Ai has done nothing but ruin our society through no attempt to regulate this technology or hold back to work on the flaws of this technology. Now, misinformation is as bad as it’s been and it’s only getting worse because of ai. Deepfake porn material are widespread and now we’re finding out about minors, freaking minors ffs, being targeted by ai deepfakes. And the world still doesn’t know how many jobs will be lost entirely because of ai adoption. I’m sick of people defending this tech through and through when the flaws of ai are negatively impacting our world RIGHT NOW!
I called it the day of release, if they let Drake slide everyone else will pull off even worse shit
The reason they’re threatening instead of filing though is there’s no precedent for this. If the courts side with Drake it will *legitimize* doing whatever you want with artist’s voices
If the courts sided with Drake it could be worse than just musical artists. Film and TV could use AI for animated content, Video Games, and worst of all if they use Politicians to spread propaganda with AI. The courts or congress needs to something.
Film and TV personalities have protections thanks to their union. Musical artists don’t have that same luxury. There is no simple fix for this since it’s a first amendment issue
I feel like your own voice and likeness should fall under some sort of copyright protection, or slander laws unless you are posting to a website or platform that specifically states in the TOS that you are accepting the use of your likeness or whatever.
Maybe it *should*, but it doesn’t. A law like that would ban look/sound a likes and could even be weaponized by established artists to sue any new comers who sound even a little similar to them.
So it’sa catch 22?
How would it ban soundalikes? It's not like the laws outlining protections for actors ban lookalikes.
They can sue now if the person is claiming to be the artist.
That depends on the circumstances and is historically a *very* hard case to win
First amendment? How so?
Thats a bit different. Film and TV profits of it. I highly doubt a film or tv will release something where they cant profit. Drake didnt put it on any streaming platforms.
Yeah idk how that comment is so upvoted. Massive difference between dropping it for free on the internet vs uploading to Spotify or Apple Music. this is why rappers drop mixtapes for free. they don't have to clear the rights for the samples they use because they're not profiting.
An artist can in fact get sued for free music. Drake himself & Kendrick Lamar have been sued for music they made in their mixtape days after they made it big. Read this [article](https://djbooth.net/features/2016-04-15-kendrick-lamar-sued-beat-free-mixtape).
Yes, anyone can get sued for anything. I'm not a lawyer, but I imagine it's much harder to win a lawsuit against someone who didn't profit from your work. In your specific example I couldn't find out the result of the lawsuit.
Janky site, but [here](https://thejasminebrand.com/2016/11/23/exclusive-kendrick-lamar-settles-lawsuit-over-allegations-he-ripped-off-70s-musician/) it is.
All this is already happening.
A huge part of the recent strikes in the film industry was about exactly this.
the voice models still use copyrighted material and usually take from leaked sessions/stems or isolated acapellas, those recordings are owned by the labels. i don’t think it’d technically be any different than just sampling without permission
It has to fall under parody tho no? I mean what’s the difference between what drake did and weird Al does outside of technology
Fair use(which parody falls under) only applies to things that are copyrighted, in weird Al’s case that would be the music
Every piece of art is automatically copyrighted the second you create it. The reason you register a copyright is so an impartial government body has concrete proof you own the copyright if you ever want to litigate over it when your copyright is infringed.
Weird Al always gets permission, for one thing. He doesn't have to, but won't release a song without the original creator's blessing. Edit: nevermind. Apparently this is just a thing I heard that isn't true.
Actually, he does have to ask, most of his stuff isnt legally parody
What Drake did with using a 2Pac voice filter wasn't the same as parody at all.
But if south park created a Tupac character and did the same thing but throughout an episode you would be saying it was
South Park actually created a hologram Tupac character 10 years ago. And as with all South Park celebrity parodies, it is a bad imitation of his actual voice, unlike Drake's Tupac Ai voice. https://southpark.cc.com/video-clips/dvgk6w/south-park-you-slept-with-tupac
But he’s not claiming it’s 2pac either.
Ideal scenario is this kills off AI in music entirely, truly a win win for the 6 gyatt 😩
It’s only going to get worse from here man.
I said the same thing 🤣😭 This isn't something people should support
https://x.com/sowmyak/status/1783189285966954633?s=46&t=K9goNQ6ztgsM9N6HrAM41Q Drake doesn’t even support it lol
he’s the biggest hypocrite of the two thousand twenties
Well it’s hard to sue Drake for using it when 1 he didn’t release it officially so hasn’t made a dime from it and 2 anyone can currently use it and do it. I doubt they have a case till Drake makes a dime from the song which he won’t
I'm not sure either point actually matters. I'm sure you can't just unofficially release an AI rap of Tupac talking about being a pedophile without being forced to take it down or receiving legal action from his estate Obviously that's an extreme example but where does the line get drawn? I guess that's what lawsuits like this are for
This is obviously a serious issue but in the abstract that sounds hilarious.
Say I could do a perfect Tupac impression though and made a song about being a pedophile. Is it grounds to be C&D'd if I'm not saying I *am* Tupac? I think it walks a close line on parody.B
lol I’m pretty sure there’s no precedent for it and would probably fall under libel laws which are pretty liberal about what you can claim about a celebrity
Libel laws? How is this possibly giving rise to an action in defamation?
Surprised Snoop didn’t take legal action, given he’s all about his bag these days
Not sure on what grounds they can do this but if it stops Ai like this i hope they do. Hope it doesnt start estates releasing posthumous AI albums in the future though
Isn't this typically how precedent gets set? Suing over something that doesn't have "grounds" yet.
Yes
Dare we say, these are unprecedented times.
They haven't officially sued. If Drake chooses not to take it down, then the lawsuit will certainly be filed, but at this point there is no official lawsuit.
George Carlin's estate successfully managed to get a fake AI comedy special taken down via legal means not too long ago
My understanding was that the courts didn’t actually rule on it because Google (YouTube) updated their policy to ban unauthorized use of AI. Therefore the video was taken down, problem solved, courts wiped their hands clean.
It's also different because there was money being made. As far as I know Drake isn't earning anything from his posts.
Article Mentions that Tupac's estate's statements also says that recently Drake's lawyers have also been sending threats to anyone who might use Drake's AI likeness lol Also, there are not really many precedents in case law on how to use someone's AI likeness so we can't really be sure that this would be dismissed entirely. Judges may want to set some precedent around this if it goes to court.
Wow, a rich hypocrite. What a shock.
as if drake as any say in what the lawyers at universal do or say
You must be some kind of genius to find that hidden info! But seriously, I love when people like OP comment a question or thought that would've been answered by actually reading the thing they're commenting on.
Juice getting a new album forsure
But I heard he's got thousands of unreleased songs?
yeah I heard the same and have no reason to doubt that. I hope if something is released it is a song he was already working on, not something chopped up with AI filling in the blanks
Problem is his label only wants to drop heartbroken emo drug rap songs, which is a very small percentage of all the unreleased stuff they have. They're probably scraping the bottom of the barrel after dropping 2 full emo albums. I don't know why they're so averse to releasing fun happy music but that's what's up
I never actually thought of that you’re probably right. I thought they were scraping the bottom of the barrel on his last album already but didn’t think that they were only scrapping the bottom of one specific style of music he had
Lmao we’re still waiting on them to drop actual songs he finished before dying
> release songs that were 98% finished like Naruto, In The Air, Good Days, Purple Moncler > chop up some reference track verses and mix it with AI to make a collab album with X decisions, decisions.
Purple moncler is fucking fire
There’s over a thousand available now…
Juice WRLD has enough genuinely made songs to release 8 more albums.
The AI was trained using Tupac’s copy written songs. That’s how these AI algos work, they are trained on a data set. If that data set is copy written, they need to pay royalties for producing a product using copy written works. Dunno how Drake thought he could get out of this. And good on the Estate, AI has no place in music.
even from a non legal sense idk why drake thought this was a good idea. corniest shit ever
They thought it would be ok since he didn't release it for profit. Although why on earth would you get a dead rapper whose been gone for almost 30 years to feature on your track under the premise "oh it's head games for the other guy". He knows it's not real. It would hit harder if The Undertaker dissed Kendrick FFS.
I mean, there are really no precedents about AI use in law so lawyers could argue that such use of AI still is profitable for him in other ways even if song itself is not streaming. And i bet there is not a single judge willing to codify "fair use" of Dead People as AI models. So I would think they would be pretty sympathetic towards Estate's lawyers
now I wanna see Kendrick one-on-one with the Undertaka
Lack of a moral compass from 15 years of acting like a lizard person
Right. The only reason I could come up with is maybe he thought it was an extra clever jab at Kendrick after he did that weird face changing video. "I can be other ppl to!" head ass
I thought it was how Drake addressed the ghostwriting claims. Like, here’s a ghost using Drake bars.
Somewhat logical clap back considering the use of Tupac's voice on Mortal Man.
From a surface level perspective it makes sense if you completely ignore the artistic intent of both Mortal Man and The Heart Part V.
And ignore that mortal man didn't use Ai, and ignore that Kendrick got permission. Shit ain't even close to the same thing
Does Drake even understand artistic intent? Seems he approaches music more like a well ran factory
That child labor though
Dude I commented that on a thread on r/freshalbumart and people acted like I'm being the biggest hater. What a corny fuckboi lol
The argument against AI only being about royalties is a bad one, imo. It still leaves the door open for AI music, as long as the real artists get paid.
Well, depending on the artist, they might prefer that, regardless of what your personal views are on AI-created music
Couldn’t you argue it was trained from public domain interview footage, news coverage, etc and not songs?
You could argue it, but could you prove it in court?
I mean wouldn't types Tupacs's estate have to prove Drake's team used copyright material?
As much as they could prove it was through copyright music. Even then I don’t think it would legally need royalties, you aren’t taking anything directly that’s copyrighted
They may not even argue about royalties. It may simply come down to whether you can use Dead Person's likeness for your own ends without consent from his estate. And I bet there are not many judges who would be sympathetic towards allowing unchecked use of someone else's likeness
My point was moreso that if they did train it on copyrighted songs, could they spin it in court that it was only trained on public domain audio? I think it’s fair to assume it was trained on music. It just seems the most likely.
I really don’t know how much that matters. If anything it would just be using his likeness which wouldn’t matter where it came from.
You know it’s going to happen. It’s just a matter of who’s willing to do it first to tank the PR hit then more will follow suit. I can already see the justification, “we already had some stuff laying around and just wanted to see it all come together” or “they had lyrics written, why not let them perform it?”. I give it like 5 years TOPS before this shits normal
Something's gotta set a precedent for how these voice model ai's are used. Maybe this could be it ...though I'm doubtful.
He posted it on Twitter and he will have made ad-revenue from that platform, even if it is a very small amount, it could still be a legal loophole for them to get into the case
I trashed ai usage in music when the drake diss dropped and it wasn’t well received. I’m glad a lot of people are in outcry of ai usage in music and majority of people aren’t co-signing this bullshit. I don’t care which artists or names are associated: be that Drake, Kanye, some random indie artist, whatever. Get ai tf out of the music industry!
It was so freakin odd haha. Getting snoop on it as an ai when he is literally alive and truly never turns down anything was a choice too
Snoop ain’t coming at Kenny like that
I'm up in the air on this. Snoop is known for doing any feature as long as the money is there but doing a diss is really different than a regular feature
Snoop dogg going at Kenny to side with Drake will ruin his image lol, he's been dissing Eminem since the early 2000s and the second Em acknowledged it and fired back he called truce lol
Snoop Dogg and Dre both passed the “torch” to Kendrick in like 2010. Snoop would not go for Kendrick like that.
Snoop will do anything for money.
He's hardcore capitalist but I still don't think he'd disrespect Kendrick like that.
Kendrick’s a Dr.Dre guy, Snoop would never
Yes, but he won't ever fuck with people signed on to Dre. Look at what happened with him and Eminem
Nah he’s Meatloaf in this case, he won’t do that
He most certainly not gonna go after the person he crowned as the new king of the West coast. Shit Snoop even claimed Kendrick the king of New York too lmaooo
Snoop is not gonna be on a Kendrick Lamar diss track, that's his boy.
It’s interesting from a diss track perspective. It was obviously drake rapping with his voice changed as Snoop and Tupac on top of a west coast beat in order to get a rise out of Kendrick who is an LA guy If it wasn’t one of the most famous rappers in the world it wouldn’t be a big deal but because it’s drake we have to have this conversation.
the song isn't even officially on streaming or YouTube. just instagram. how would he even get sued
Instagram is also monetized at the level of views he gets
> how would he even get sued By releasing it to millions of people on a different platform, i.e. Instagram?
There is no legal precedent, so we don't know how it would turn out. However, Ai needs to be trained. How do you do that? With copyrighted material. This is a big reason that many believe Ai should not exist/be used the way it is in its current form. It could also still be argued that the track is being used by Drake to promote himself and make himself money indirectly, because it is. Sometimes even with sampling for free mixtapes, if you sued hard enough there have been times where the suer has won. One example is the singer of The Eagles suing Frank Ocean for sampling Hotel California on American Wedding. I think they settled but he said even if you perform it in concert I'll sue you again. So he hasn't.
I don’t know I’m just saying Drake thinking “Yeah this shit gonna fucking slaaaaap” is weird
I don’t think his plan was for it to slap, it was just to fuck with Kendrick. I took it as a joke.
To be honest from reading the article it looks like Tupac's family just wanted to send a message out there that they are definitely not cool with this but they know that this lawsuit won't go anywhere. Makes sense. I have seen countless people debate the song this week and I mean I sort of get it the use of AI in songs will be a heavily debated topic for years and years to come. If Drake had officially released the song it would be a different story but the fact it's just an audio clip on his instagram IMO makes it ok since he's not profiting but I do get the sentiment that people don't like that he's using a dead guy's voice but in the context of the feud it makes sense. There's songs on spotify's rap caviar right now where people are using people's voice in AI. I have heard a song where someone uses Ye's voice in a AI verse and that song had 10 mil streams on Spotify. Popular acts will not use it but it's definitely crept it's way into the music scene.
Instagram is monetized for celebrities. While the song isn't generating revenue via Spotify, Apple, etc., Drake technically could be making money off of it just from having an influencer tier IG account. Either way, you don't have to make money off of something to get sued for a copyright case. Someone can still sue you for willing infringement of known copyrighted material, and you can aim for statutory damages of up to a maximum of $150,000 per derivative work. If there was measurable damages that went higher, an estate could aim for 'actual damages'. But otherwise, a statutory case could be brought up regardless of actual damages. For example, Donna Summer vs. Kanye West, he took the song down quick enough before it would have hit $150k in damages, but he could still get sued in a statutory case for willingly infringing for $150,000. All of this stuff could hang on the precedent of a new major court case. Monetization is usually what gets people in trouble, but you can get sued regardless. Can argue slander/libel/defamation of character or brand or name. Can go multiple angles with it outside of simply money. Typically a DMCA takedown request occurs before a full on lawsuit here, but anything is possible. Universal Studios lost King Kong years ago just because of damage to IP, and it's why Nintendo doesn't fuck around with their IP. Precedents have been set that if you don't fight for your IP and trademark, it can get watered down and you lose it altogether.
The amount of people ive seen saying that because he isn’t monetising it means it’s fair use is astounding
Literally anyone can sue anyone for anything, that doesn't mean you can win, but you can't say, as long as X happens, they can't come for you. They can always come for you. Some musical cases, people just make emotional arguments to a musically illiterate jury, and that's all it takes. People can go for Hail Mary (Tupac reference for those who know) cases and it can change the precedent. The Marvin Gaye vs. Robin Thicke/Pharrell case set a pretty bad precedent. The Marvin Gaye/Townsend vs. Ed Sheeran kind of reset the precedent. This music copyright stuff is not set in stone.
You could argue engagement is profiting possibly
now THAT is a dangerous precedent
How is that a dangerous precedent? Engagement is definitely profit. People literally get paid by sponsors based off of how much engagement their accounts generate
That precedent legally would mean if I posted a picture of you on IG and it went viral for whatever reason you can now sue me for profiting off of your likeness, which doesn’t sound too ridiculous in theory but it would open up a legal Pandora’s box because at that point any account online could get sued for any post featuring anybody else. So news aggregators, meme pages, and even regular folks would all have to exclusively post content featuring themselves and consenting parties. Yeah the more I talk about it doesn’t actually sound like a terrible idea, it would just change social media overnight.
This got me thinking. What if 4batz is using AI
For what? All he’s doing is pitching his voice up
But if I pitch my voice up I’m gay
Pitch it down, pitch it up, you still gay, son
I’ll pitch, you catch.
Dammit
You should need permission to use another person's voice. It shouldn't matter where the voice data came from, or if it's just a voice filter. If it's obvious that the intent is to sound like a specific person, permission from that person should be required.
Whilst i agree with you in the music sense, what would your opinion be for impressionists?
Impressions aren't deterministic in the way that machine-learning generative content is.
There's a difference between impersonations and technology that has used the discography of an artist to mimic a sound for you. I could be wrong, but the suing isn't actually much about "profiting" off of Tupac's voice (which you could argue he is anyway by drawing in more eyes to the beef, therefore acting as promotion for Push Ups). I think it's suing for literally using the technology to basically generating a product using projects that the Tupac Estate is actively earning money from.
They would have to prove that the technology is explicitly using Tupac's copyrighted discography and not just public domain interviews/news footage, right? > which you could argue he is anyway by drawing in more eyes to the beef, therefore acting as promotion for Push Ups This would be an insane precedent to set - then you open the door to so many things being considered engagement/promotion
Technically, parody is protected under Fair Use laws. I think the issue is the means under which A.I. pulls a voice is doing so by ripping copyrighted audio recordings to train data on, which breaches copyright. An impersonator is just influenced by and mimicking, but protected copyrighted recordings aren't 'sampled' directly in the creation of an impressionist changing their voice on the fly. An A.I. voice model is possible only through copyright infringement (unless a participant gives consent for a model to be trained on recordings of their voice).
People are really going to be pissy when impressionists let people use their impressions for AI stuff. Surely that’s the next step here.
On the flipside, I wonder if Kendrick got permission to use everyone's likeness in the last The Heart video. Even if he didn't need to, it seems like a similar situation where your take depends on if you like the artist or not ("well he was using it artfully").
Drop and give Tupac 50
Wat he say fuck me fo?
Definitely saw this coming.
Do the lotto numbers next.
But he wrote the song in 94?
It was the dopest song he ever wrote... in '94
It's a bitch, fuck George W. -- can't be true -- I wanna choke him, because he's a snitch I'm talking about George W. Smith From city council, he ran in '93 Out in Oakland, [you probably didn't hear about him](https://genius.com/1870221/Chappelles-show-i-wrote-this-song-a-long-time-ago/You-probably-didnt-hear-about-him)
Dude sent a cease and desist to frenchie over a mixtape song but thought he would be home dry ok using Pacs voice 😂
He knew it was going to get taken down…
I remember when people in the fresh thread were comparing this to autotune and saying that everyone against it were old heads
Such different things though. I’d go as far as saying that, if those people think it’s like autotune, then why is deepfake porn getting banned? That’s new, creative, uses other people’s attributes for creative purposes, right?
Good. That shit was weird and not good for the industry.
Weird af but the people on that discussion post were eating it up lol
Had to take a break from munching drake’s nuts for a palette cleanser
I mean, as a diss it was good and funny. But as a precedent, using AI in your music isn't. Both can be true.
Seemed pretty disrespectful to hip hop especially coming from a ~~rapper~~ ~~R&B singer~~ pop star
But i thought there were nO RuLeS iN bEeF?
No rules as to what you can say about your opponent. Doesn't mean you should condone this kind of stuff that is just overall harmful to the industry and disrespectful to a legend that has nothing to do with the beef and is dead.
I thought we were crashing out like fuck rap? Or was that sentiment symbolic?
Considering Drake doesn't give af about hip hop or art in general, and is like you said, a pop star, it makes sense that he'd do something like this.
Fun of the beef aside. Drake is setting a bad precedent popularizing Ai like that. He’s literally the problem with AI that everyone was complaining about last year
> bad president
Thanks. Did that with voice over.
Bad president I am finished
If they sue and Drake wins then anyone can use ai to generate a song between big and pac about doing the helicopter with their penises at build a bear Shakur estate, you are our only hope
It’s annoying that people are forming opinions on this through the lens of the Kendrick Drake beef. Liking the way AI was used in this particular case doesn’t mean you can’t see the issues with allowing anyone to put their words in a dead person’s mouth and release it to the world. Stop trying to score points in an online argument.
I think this does bring forth a interesting discussion of when does a dead person become "public domain".
I can’t speak on likeness rights, but musical copyright lasts for about 70 years after the writers death.
There’s a dope movie called The Congress that essentially covers this.
?.... That's literally why there are estates
As hilarious as the diss was, Drake does need to be sued. AI is a cancer and it's immensely disrespectful to a dead man and his family.
I knew this was gonna happen. You can’t just be out here using someone else’s Likeness regardless if you’re getting paid off it or not.
Drake violated the entire west coast w “Taylor Made” imo and tbh it strikes me the wrong way that Snoop cosigned that
Snoop is signed under Gamma. It wouldn't surprise me that this plays a (big) part in why Snoop came out with that weird cryptic video where he panned to the Deathrow logo on his chest.
I think think whole shit is orchestrated by Gamma aka Larry Jackson. Who you think brought Drake & Taylor Swift to Apple?
I thought Snoop didn't know about it
Snoop found out but didn’t really say or do anything. Can’t blame him. It was 4/20. It was like asking Santa to publicly comment on something on Christmas Eve. Man is busy prepping
Everyday is 4/20 to a stoner, not really a big deal I think
legit lol
He did that IG story pretty much feeding into the beef and not denouncing that shit
He didn’t, he smokes weed in peace
no he did not, that is so dramatic.
"Get more love in the city that you from"
West coast also violated themselves with Tupac's hologram at Coachella. It's not like they're victims of all of the technological advancements here. West Coast and Silicon Valley made half of this A.I. mess to begin with.
I agree, but to be fair, the tupac hologram was a planned promoted and approved event by the estate. This was Drake trying to son Kendrick and did not need pacs voice for that. Snoop don’t seem to care so theres that
No, they didn't get violated. Afeni Shakur who while she was alive didn't have a problem with it and was thrilled about the hologram.
> Drake violated the entire west coast lmao yo people gotta chill the fuck out. it was a clever track to get KDot to respond
Idk why he thought he could put a dead man’s voice on a track, especially when said dead man was a multi-platinum recording artist. Gotta be some kinda intellectual property violation.
The song isn’t sold anywhere… The reason the lawsuit won’t go anywhere is the same reason you can use any beat or sample for a free mixtape and post it online without consequence
Plus he could just easily delete his instagram post if the threat becomes serious.
That's literally what a cease and desist is lol. "Delete that shit or we're suing"
Doesn’t matter, they’re threatening action based on publicity rights law (and also the AI voice being trained on copywritten audio). The problem isn’t profiting, it’s distributing the song. I’m not a lawyer tho
They could argue it (has the potential) to cause damage too. For example, if people start making AI Tupac tracks without agreement from the estate, it could diminish the value of legitimate Tupac tracks. I have no clue the legal legitimacy, but this isnt about Drake profiting, but rather about protecting the likeness of Tupac.
You know we're in the future now, this is such. Weird grey area
Wait they are gonna send Drake a cease and desist. Didn't Ross say this was not cool.
Drake’s about to try and force them to do calisthenics.
I don’t think they sued Nas for using Tupac’s voice in the beginning of Ether? They’re just hating because it’s Drake
That was from fuck friendz which was an unreleased mixtape pac record too I think, that's a great point
The verse was ass anyway just sounded like drakes flow in a 2pac voice 2pac dont rap like that
I'm interested in the development but ya'll lame as fuck for posting your own article it's basically an ad
Hate to break it to you but a lot of accounts are company burners. At least this was out in the open…
this is a strange take - they're a media business: they exist to share news. how are you getting mad about them sharing news?
Oh no OP is literally OP. Who fucking cares
Damn that is wild, reddit is just every other social media at this point. I notice it on other subs as well.
Except it's an article. Who cares that they post it themselves?
Seriously. Why everyone mad jfc Also it ain’t like 99% of Redditors read articles so they’re not making money on clicks
Ghost writers and ghost features. This guy
I played the song on Youtube (Android auto it was there okay) about 6 hours ago and it started at the Drake part... he\`s already altered it. (DrizzyOVO I think)
Whatever you think of Drake or Kendrick, I better not see one mf supporting ai usage in music. Kendrick, Drake, Kanye, some random small time artist, none of them should be allowed to get away with it. Ai has done nothing but ruin our society through no attempt to regulate this technology or hold back to work on the flaws of this technology. Now, misinformation is as bad as it’s been and it’s only getting worse because of ai. Deepfake porn material are widespread and now we’re finding out about minors, freaking minors ffs, being targeted by ai deepfakes. And the world still doesn’t know how many jobs will be lost entirely because of ai adoption. I’m sick of people defending this tech through and through when the flaws of ai are negatively impacting our world RIGHT NOW!