Universal Music Group, the music company that represents superstars including Sting, The Weeknd, Nicki Minaj and Ariana Grande, sent letters to streaming platforms including Spotify and Apple Music in April asking them to ban AI-generated music from the platforms.

“The company has an ethical and commercial responsibility to artists to work to prevent unauthorized use of their music and to stop platforms from reproducing content that infringes on artists’ rights,” a Universal Music Group spokesperson told CNN.

UMG’s move, first reported by the Financial Times, aims to stop artificial intelligence from posing an existential threat to the music industry. UMG says it is not opposed to the technology itself, but to artificial intelligence that is so advanced it can recreate melodies and even musicians’ voices in seconds.

The company said that AI using artists’ music violates UMG’s agreements and copyright law. UMG has sent requests to broadcasters asking them to delete AI-generated songs.

Difficult control

“I understand the intent behind this move, but I’m not sure how effective it will be, as AI services will likely still have access to copyrighted material in one way or another,” said Carl Fulks, entertainment and business attorney at The Fowlkes Firm.

There are no regulations dictating what AI can and cannot train, CNN reports. But last month, in response to people wanting to claim copyright for works created with artificial intelligence, the US Copyright Office issued new guidance on how to register literary, musical and artwork created with artificial intelligence.

“In the case of works containing AI-generated material, the Office will consider whether the AI ​​contributions are the result of mechanical reproduction,” the new guidance states.

“AI companies using copyrighted works to train their models to create similar works is precisely the practice that copyright courts should expressly prohibit. Original art should be protected by law, not machine-generated works that use original art to create new works,” Fulks said.

Grammy Award-winning DJ and producer David Guetta showed in February how easy it is to create new music using artificial intelligence. Using ChatGPT for the lyrics and Uberduck for the vocals, Guetta was able to create a new song within an hour.