Why Fake Drake Matters

PLUS: License AI, Ethical Music AI Tools, & How many artists use AI?

Author

Rob Abelow
April 21, 2023

Hey there, you're reading Where Music's Going. 

If you want to join 3,665 artists & builders learning how to navigate music's new future, subscribe below.

Welcome, artists & builders. This week is a little different.

The spotlight is on the implications of AI in music. I even joined BBC News Tuesday to discuss it (!!). Today is dedicated to generative AI with double the context pieces. Back to regular programming next week. Let’s dive in.

Inside Issue #7:
💡 Context: Why did fake Drake matter?
⚒️ Tools: Ethical GenAI tools
📊 Numbers: How many artists use AI?
🤔 How To: AI is inevitable & an opportunity

On Saturday, Ghostwriter977 uploaded an AI deepfake Drake & The Weekend track to TikTok.

→ Sunday it was up on streamers.
→ By noon Monday it had 20m+ streams.
→ Monday afternoon it was taken down by UMG.

Why did this track matter so much more than the many other recent AI vocal deepfakes? By design.

Copyright Battle, Commence

Here’s how Ghostwriter997 masterfully designed this to get a big reaction.

WHERE: While others were only uploaded to UGC-leaning platforms like TikTok, Twitter or Youtube, “Heart on My Sleeve” also went to official music streamers: Spotify, Apple, Tidal, etc.

WHO: It included 2 of the largest artists in the world in Drake & The Weeknd, plus the producer tag from superstar Metro Boomin. All 3 are signed to Universal Music Group: the largest label in the world, with the most aggressive copyright team, who have been loudly pressuring platforms to protect their catalog from AI models & to remove AI music.

HOW: Aggressively & with precision. The 1st TikTok teased “Drake leak or AI-deep fake?” & a subsequent TikTok included an incoming text from ‘rob (attorney)’ saying Offer in from republic.. (the parent label at UMG for all 3 artists). Masterful.

This meant war.

But, why?

You Can’t Buy This Type of Attention

Attention is hard to come by. What better way to get it than with the landmark song & case that determines how the music industry reckons with AI voice deepfakes.

Spawned By Controversy

I keep thinking back to the Grey Album, the incredible mashup of The Beatles' White Album and Jay-Z's Black Album by Danger Mouse that catapulted him to stardom. The album was aggressively pulled down by EMI, the Beatles’ label.

Despite this, two things happened:

  1. The forbidden album. The attempt to suppress the Grey Album only made it more popular. This phenomenon is known as the Streisand Effect.

  2. Danger Mouse became a sought-after producer, earning a Grammy nom for producing the next Gorillaz album, forming Gnarls Barkley with Cee Lo Green, & many more successes.

Although The Grey Album still only exists on unofficial reaches of the internet, it spawned an artist & pushed what is acceptable.

Will It Work for Ghostwriter?

It's unclear who or what Ghostwriter977 is exactly, but in under 48 hours they challenged us to reevaluate music creation & consumption.

Regardless what you think of “Heart On My Sleeve” (meh), AI-generated music will continue to challenge our perceptions of what constitutes art, and force us to reevaluate our relationship with technology & creativity.

That's the power of art: to challenge the default.

Ghostwriter977 certainly accomplished that.

— Rob

NEW TOOLS

Songs Are Seeds

Aimi Interface

What if your song’s creative process starts the day it’s released?

Aimi is working towards that future, where a song is never finished & everyone is a collaborator. Here’s how it works:

  1. Create music in Aimi Studio: Upload songs & stems. Tap into Aimi’s generative AI to co-produce the track.

  2. Hit publish: Anyone on the Aimi app can listen free.

  3. Listeners Interact: Edit the mix, production & arrangement. Direct the generative AI. Interactions will become paid.

While the beta only has 10 looping channels, artist-branded experiences are coming, where artists share ideas with listeners-turned-collaborators & monetize their stems using smart contracts.

What I Envision: Release a song. Invite your fans. They interact continuously & cumulatively. The song takes on a life of its own, with every interaction paying back to you as the original creator.

🌊 AI can help unlock new worlds of interactivity if done right.

3 more ethical genAI tools

  • Spawning is building tools for managing your AI identity, letting artists opt in or out of AI training.

  • Mubert generates personalized music for content creators & products from a pre-cleared training set, paying artists $0.50 per sample or a revenue share.

  • Reimagia is launching a content licensing library for artists to opt-in (or out) of training sets.

IN NUMBERS

Nearly 60% of music artists already use AI. Only 28% say they would not use AI for music purposes - surprisingly low.

What are artists willing to use AI for?

77% would use AI tools for album artwork
66% for mixing & mastering
62% for music production
47% for songwriting

🤖 AI to replace thee, not me.

MORE CONTEXT

You Can’t Stop AI. Join It.

The only thing that stopped music piracy was a better option for consumers.

The only thing that will stop unauthorized & unpaid AI song generation is a convenient & licensed option.

→ Shows of force.
→ Take downs.
→ Regulation.

Band-aids on a bullet wound.

Not Everything’s a Deepfake

Using a deepfake vocal as a selling point like Ghostwriter977's Drake track is easy to spot. But not everything's a deepfake. How do you prove it's your voice, lyrics or beat on a song?

Without a licensed system, an unlicensed & untrackable system will prevail.

Generative AI Music Is Not Only Inevitable, It’s an Opportunity

We must build systems that incentivize good behavior for generative AI usage, where artists can benefit from its upside.

To achieve this, we need mechanisms for:

  • Licensing: The music in models must be licensed.

  • Attribution*: Acknowledge works used in models & outputted works.

  • Compensation: Artists must be paid for their contribution.

  • Transparency: Records showing what’s in training sets.

  • Opt-out: Artists should be able to remove their work from models

If we make it easy for users & platforms to use legally sourced, licensed models that compensate original artists, we create a win-win.

→ UGC goes up,
→ Lines between artist & fan blur
→ Songs releases start, rather than end the creative process

Interactivity is key to driving revenue & fandom in faster growing sectors, like video games. Music needs to explore this path. If not, it will happen outside of licensed & paid channels.

*Possible with single or limited artist models. Less possible with massive models.

5 Recommended GenAI Reads

I’ll leave you with..

See you next week. In the meantime, catch you on twitter: @abelowrob.

Was this forwarded to you? Sign up here.

How was this week's email?

Login or Subscribe to participate in polls.

Hey there, you're reading Where Music's Going. 

If you want to join 3,665 artists & builders learning how to navigate music's new future, subscribe below.

Welcome, artists & builders. This week is a little different.

The implications of AI in music have become the center of attention. I even got to discuss it on BBC News Tuesday night. So, today’s newsletter is entirely generative AI. Back to normal programming next week. Let’s dive in.

Inside Issue #7:
💡 Context: Why did fake Drake matter?
⚒️ Tools: Ethical GenAI tools
📊 Numbers: How many artists use AI?
🤔 How To: Win with AI

Why did Ghostwriter997’s AI Drake & AI Weeknd track matter so much more than the many other recent AI deepfake songs?

Copyright Battle, Commence

Here’s how Ghostwriter997 masterfully designed this to get a big reaction.

WHERE: While others were only uploaded to UGC-leaning platforms like TikTok, Twitter or Youtube, “Heart on My Sleeve” also went to official music streamers: Spotify, Apple, Tidal, etc.

WHO: It included 2 of the largest artists in the world in Drake & The Weeknd, plus the producer tag from superstar Metro Boomin. All 3 are signed to Universal Music Group: the largest label in the world, with the most aggressive copyright team, who have been loudly pressuring platforms to protect their catalog from AI models & to remove AI music.

HOW: Ghostwriter’s 1st TikTok teased “Drake leak or AI-deep fake?” & a subsequent TikTok included an incoming text from ‘rob (attorney)’ saying “Offer in from republic..” (the parent label at UMG for Drake, The Weeknd & Metro Boomin). Masterful.

But, why?

You Can’t Buy This Type of Attention

There are rumors this came from Drake’s team to pump an upcoming album, or it was a genius marketing stunt by Laylo (a SaaS startup). Not buying it.

Attention is hard to come by. What better way to get it than with the landmark song & case that determines how the music industry reckons with AI voice deepfakes.

Spawned By Controversy

I keep thinking back to the Grey Album, the incredible mashup of The Beatles' White Album and Jay-Z's Black Album by Danger Mouse that catapulted him to stardom. The album was aggressively pulled down by EMI, the Beatles’ label. Despite this, two things happened:

  1. The forbidden album. The attempt to suppress the Grey Album only made it more popular. This phenomenon is known as the Streisand Effect.

  2. Danger Mouse became a sought-after producer, earning a Grammy nom for producing the next Gorillaz album, forming Gnarls Barkley with Cee Lo Green, & many more successes.

Although The Grey Album still only exists on unofficial reaches of the internet, it spawned an artist & pushed what is acceptable.

Will It Work for Ghostwriter?

Perhaps this is fundamentally different. The Grey Album slaps and both Paul McCartney & Jay-Z publicly applauded it.

It's unclear who or what Ghostwriter977 is exactly, but in under 48 hours they challenged us to reevaluate music creation & consumption.

Regardless what you think of “Heart On My Sleeve”, AI-generated music will continue to challenge our perceptions of what constitutes art, and force us to reevaluate our relationship with technology & creativity.

That's the power of art: to challenge the default.

Ghostwriter977 certainly accomplished that.

— Rob

NEW TOOLS

Songs Are Seeds

Aimi Interface

What if your song’s creative process starts the day it’s released?

Aimi is working towards that future, where a song is never finished & everyone is a collaborator. Here’s how it works:

  1. Create music in Aimi Studio: Upload songs & stems. Tap into Aimi’s generative AI to co-produce the track.

  2. Hit publish: Anyone on the Aimi app can listen free.

  3. Listeners Interact: Edit the mix, production & arrangement. Direct the generative AI. Interactions will become paid.

While the beta only allows access to 10 continuous channels, artist-branded experiences are coming, where artists share musical ideas with collaborators/listeners & monetize their stems using smart contracts.

What I Envision: Release a song. Invite your fans. They interact with it continuously & cumulatively. The song takes a life of its own, with every interaction paying back to you as the original creator.

More interactivity is a future AI can help unlock, if done right.

3 more ethical genAI tools

  • Spawning is building tools for managing your AI identity, letting artists opt in or out of AI training.

  • Mubert generates personalized music for content creators & products from a pre-cleared training set, paying artists $0.50 per sample or a revenue share.

  • Reimagia is launching a content licensing library for artists to opt-in (or out) of training sets.

IN NUMBERS

From distrubuter Ditto’s survey of 1,200+ artists

Nearly 60% of music artists already use AI. Only 28% say they would not use AI for music purposes - surprisingly low.

What are artists willing to use AI for?

77% would use AI tools for album artwork
66% for mixing & mastering
62% for music production
47% for songwriting

AI to replace thee, not me.

MORE CONTEXT

You Can’t Stop AI. Join It.

The only thing that stopped music piracy was a better option for consumers.

The only thing that will stop unauthorized & unpaid AI song generation is a convenient & licensed option.

→ Shows of force.
→ Take downs.
→ Regulation.

Band-aids on a bullet wound.

Not Everything’s a Deepfake

Using a deepfake vocal as a selling point like Ghostwriter977's Drake track is easy to spot. But not everything's a deepfake. How do you prove it's your voice, lyrics or beat on a song?

Without a licensed system, an unlicensed & untrackable system will prevail.

Generative AI Music Is Not Only Inevitable, It’s an Opportunity

We must build systems that incentivize good behavior for generative AI usage, where artists can benefit from its upside.

To achieve this, we need mechanisms for:

  • Licensing: The music in models must be licensed.

  • Attribution*: Acknowledge works used in models & outputted works.

  • Compensation: Artists must be paid for their contribution.

  • Transparency: Records showing what’s in training sets.

  • Opt-out: Artists should be able to remove their work from models

If we make it easy for users & platforms to use legally sourced, licensed models that compensate original artists, we create a win-win.

→ UGC goes up,
→ Lines between artist & fan blur
→ Songs releases start, rather than end the creative process

Interactivity is key to driving revenue & fandom in faster growing sectors, like video games. Music needs to explore this path. If not, it will happen outside of licensed & paid channels.

*Possible with single or limited artist models. Less possible with massive models.

5 Recommended GenAI Reads

I’ll leave you with..

See you next week. In the meantime, catch you on twitter: @abelowrob.

Was this forwarded to you? Sign up here.

How was this week's email?

Login or Subscribe to participate in polls.