![]() ![]() However, in a landmark case in 1988, the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that Ford Motor Company misappropriated singer Bette Midler‘s distinctive voice when it hired one of her former backup singers to imitate her performance of a song for use in a TV commercial. Until 1988, it seemed clear that a mere vocal imitation did not infringe on a celebrity’s rights of publicity. Instead, a patchwork of state legislation and common law make for a blurry legal landscape, with many states having underdeveloped laws on the issue. In the United States, there is no federal law governing rights of publicity. Could this be the start of a string of “Not ” releases? And while passing off may theoretically protect popular artists with particularly distinctive voices, it would be much more difficult for lesser-known artists to demonstrate that a sufficient degree of notoriety or “goodwill” is attached to their voice. Arguably, however, this would be hard to prove if the creator of a new recording made clear that it was not the work of a given artist but rather an AI performance (since then there would be no misrepresentation). Passing off is notoriously difficult to prove, and doing so would require an artist to establish that he has appropriate goodwill and demonstrate both that there has been a misrepresentation caused by the unauthorized synthesized performance and that it will cause the artist damage. Most relevant to unauthorized emulation of an artist’s voice using AI technology is the tort “passing off.” Unlike privacy rights, passing off is principally concerned with protecting the commercial value of an individual’s reputation, and it’s probably the closest thing that UK law has to a traditional right of publicity. ![]() ‘There Has to Be Compensation’: ChatGPT Exec Faces Tough Music AI Questioning at… ![]() Instead, a patchwork of statute, common law, intellectual property rights and privacy protections need to be considered to protect a person’s “image.” In the UK, there is no codified law of publicity rights. Since copyright falls short, can artists rely on rights of publicity, which safeguard a celebrity’s name, image, likeness and sometimes voice, and other unique personal attributes from unauthorized commercial use? ![]() Since AI systems usually do not copy parts of an input recording to generate the content they output, the performer’s right is not implicated. AI soundalike recordings are generally not created using samples or snippets of existing recordings but instead are generated independently with AI tools that have learned to reconstruct a particular voice. Thus, owning the copyright to the original sound recording is of little help since the newly recorded material is not a direct copy.įor the same reason, UK performers’ rights, which protect the exploitation of artists’ performances, are unhelpful since the most relevant restricted act is making a copy of the recording of a performance, rather than the performance itself. But neither US nor UK copyright law protects a performer’s voice, tone or unique singing style. ‘Dynamic Music’ Promises to Soundtrack Life on Demand - and in Real TimeĬopyright has long been the main way that artists and labels protect their creative and economic investment in music. While some legal opposition to these tracks pertains to how AI tools “learn” from copyrighted works at the “training” stage, our focus is on the issues surrounding the “output” created using these AI tools and the potential protections for artists and labels against soundalike recordings in both US and UK law. Universal Music Group fired back, insisting in a statement on the responsibility of platforms to protect artists from such exploitation. Since then, tracks that use AI-synthesized voices to imitate famous artists have flooded streaming services and social media, triggering a fierce debate among artists, industry executives and fans alike. The biggest one yet: “Heart On My Sleeve,” a recording by the creator Ghostwriter that features what seems to be AI-generated imitations of vocals by Drake and The Weeknd - and amassed over 600,000 Spotify streams before being yanked from the platform. As creators and rightsholders think about how to respond to the threats and opportunities represented by generative artificial intelligence, recordings made with the technology are already causing a stir. ![]()
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