AI vs. the Music Industry: With the Internet Full of Fake Drakes and Eminems, Who Gets Paid?

variety.com:

David Guetta channeled Eminem on a song through artificial intelligence. The volume hit 11 in April, when “Heart on My Sleeve,” a song with AI-generated vocals by a fake Drake and a fake Weeknd, racked up millions of streams before being removed by streaming services, and louder still when electronic artist Grimes not only promised a 50-50 split with anyone who wants to use her AI voice on a song, she launched software called Elf.Tech to help them do it.

Artificial intelligence by way of machine learning is the latest existential threat to the music business, and unlike the frequently cited precedent of Napster-era piracy, which opened the door to illegal downloads, the industry has mobilized quickly to respond, with takedown orders, petitions, op-eds and the Human Artistry Campaign, an initiative established to set fair practices in AI, not just in music but in other arts and even sports; Human Artistry’s dozens of members range from the Recording Academy to the Graphic Artists Guild.

The questions around AI and creators’ rights are so head-spinning it’s hard to know where to begin: If David Guetta uses ChatGPT to create a fake Eminem verse for a song, who gets paid?

Should it be Eminem, or could it fall under fair use or even parody, which is protected by the First Amendment? Should it be the engineers of ChatGPT — or, since the machine did not create the verse completely by itself, should it be the music that was programmed into the technology that enabled it to create fake-Eminem’s rhymes?