Universal Music Group has responded to the viral A.I.-generated song by Drake and The Weeknd calling it “fraud” & telling streaming platforms to ban the technology.
Heart On My Sleeve is no longer available on Apple Music, Spotify, Deezer and Tidal.
It is also in the process of being pulled from TikTok and YouTube, but some versions remain available.
It follows stinging criticism from publishers Universal Music Group which said the song violated copyright law.
The music publisher said platforms had a “legal and ethical responsibility” to prevent the use of services harming artists.
The track simulates Drake and The Weeknd trading verses about pop star and actress Selena Gomez, who previously dated The Weeknd.
The creator, known as @ghostwriter, claims the song was created by software trained on the musicians’ voices. In a now-deleted TikTok video, ghostwriter explained that AI was used to create the song but did not disclose what program was used. In a comment under the video, ghostwriter said that they wrote the song, then replaced their voice with Drake’s. Typically, a person can make an AI song like this by writing and recording a track, then use an AI model to replace their vocals with a popular artist’s voice.
“i was a ghostwriter for years and got paid close to nothing just for major labels to profit. the future is here,” the artist wrote in another TikTok comment.
Ghostwriter did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Neither did representatives for The Weeknd or Metro Boomin. A representative for Drake did not comment on the matter.
A track titled “heart on my sleeve” was posted to YouTube on Friday (April 14) by someone known as ghostwriter. It included the artificial vocals of both the 6 God and XO leader together and was then posted to Apple, Tidal, Deezer and Spotify. The track reportedly racked up over 630,000 listens on the latter.
Universal Music Group, where both Drizzy and The Weeknd are currently signed, has since taken the track off all the aforementioned platforms, and in a lengthy statement (via Music Week) commented on the rise of “deep fakes” and asked which “side of history” its stakeholders wanted to be on.
“UMG’s 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,” the statement began.
Listeners were impressed by the AI models’ abilities to capture Drake and The Weeknd’s voices accurately. However, the production and existence of the song itself divided people.
“This is scary lol … song is actually good,” one person tweeted.
“His lyrics and song structure was trash, but impressive AI model,” another tweeted.
“i think the new wave of ai music is cool but i don’t think we should be able to distribute these on major platforms for profit,” one person said in a TikTok comment.
As of Tuesday morning, “heart on my sleeve” had been removed from Spotify, Apple Music, SoundCloud, Amazon, YouTube and Tidal. The YouTube link for the song reads, “This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by Universal Music Group.”
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