A.I.

THE BIG STORY: Is the music industry’s billion-dollar legal battle over artificial intelligence suddenly going to be over before it starts? I wouldn’t count on it just yet.
News broke this weekend that Universal Music, Warner Music and Sony Music were each in talks to license their songs to Suno and Udio for use in training AI models to spit out new songs – less than a year after the music companies filed blockbuster copyright cases accusing the AI startups of stealing music on an “unimaginable scale.”

Both sides have framed those cases as an existential fight over the future of music. The labels says Suno and Udio are “trampling” the rights of real musicians in an effort to replace them; the startups argue back that the music giants are abusing intellectual property to crush a new technology that threatens their market share.

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Is an actual deal imminent? I’d lean toward no. Low-boil settlement talks are a common and continuous feature of almost any litigation, and it’s unclear exactly how far they’ve gotten here. The labels have long said they’re open to listening, but striking a final deal – rather than just discussing one in broad strokes – will require solving a long list of incredibly complex problems, as my colleague Kristin Robinson writes.

The choice confronting the music giants in these talks – to strike a deal or fight it out in court – is one facing all creative industries amid the rise of artificial intelligence. If you sell your content to AI firms, you earn short term profits…by empowering a technology that might destroy you in the long run. If you fight it out, you risk being left behind amid a technological revolution, all for what could be a losing cause.

For the music business, history makes that an especially grueling choice. Nobody wants a replay of the 2000s, when labels chose to fight an ascendant new technology in court rather than harness and exploit its potential for profit. Only when the majors opted to partner with streamers like Spotify – in equity stake deals eerily similar to those being discussed with Suno and Udio – did the industry begin the long climb to recovery.

But digital music merely represented a new distribution system, and one where the tech partners would ultimately always need to pay real musicians for their output. If the labels end these lawsuits by handing over their catalogs for AI training now, those new partners might one day no longer need them at all.

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Other top stories this week…

LIZZO’S APPEAL – Lizzo’s lawyers launched an appeal aimed at ending a sexual harassment lawsuit filed by her former backup dancers, calling it an “attack” on her “First Amendment right to perform her music and advocate for body positivity.” Lizzo’s attorneys say her behavior toward the dancers was clearly part of her artistic approach — and thus shielded by constitutional protections for free speech.

SHADY FACEBOOK MUSIC? – Eight Mile Style, a company that owns much of Eminem’s catalog, filed a copyright lawsuit against Meta over accusations that Facebook and Instagram made “Lose Yourself” and other iconic tracks available to billions of users without permission. The case claimed that the social media giant added Eminem’s songs to its music library without the necessary licenses, violating copyright law on a “massive” scale in the pursuit of “obscene monetary benefit.”

OFFENSE AS DEFENSE – Smokey Robinson filed a countersuit against four longtime housekeepers who recently accused him of rape, claiming the allegations were part of an “extortionate scheme” by the women and their attorneys. The Motown legend accused the women and their lawyers of defamation, invasion of privacy, civil conspiracy and even elder abuse over the “fabricated” allegations.

YOUNGBOY PARDONED – President Donald Trump granted a pardon to YoungBoy Never Broke Again, who was released from prison in April after pleading guilty last year to a single count of possession of firearms by a convicted felon. The rapper, who has faced legal trouble for years, thanked the president on social media: “This moment means a lot. It opens the door to a future I’ve worked hard for and I am fully prepared to step into this.”

TRAFFIC DEATH – Ex-Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist Josh Klinghoffer reached a plea deal with prosecutors to avoid prison time after striking and killing 47-year-old Israel Sanchez with his car in Los Angeles last year. Under the terms of the deal, the rocker pleaded no contest to misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter without gross negligence and was sentenced to one year of informal probation and 60 days of community labor.

SPOUSAL SUPPORT – Offset updated his divorce filings to demand that his estranged wife Cardi B pay him spousal support after their split is finalized. In an amended version of his answer to Cardi’s divorce petition, the Migos star added a request for an unspecified amount of alimony, but remains unchanged otherwise. The pair of superstars are one year into an increasingly acrimonious divorce case following six years of marriage.

BILLION WITH A B – The Justice Department urged the U.S. Supreme Court to tackle a billion-dollar lawsuit over music piracy filed by the major labels against Cox Communications, warning that a “sweeping” ruling could force internet providers to cut off service to many Americans. The case, in which the labels won a $1 billion verdict in 2019, saw a lower court hold Cox itself liable for widespread illegal downloading by its users.  

FIVIO PLEA DEAL – Brooklyn rapper Fivio Foreign took a plea deal to end a criminal case stemming from allegations he pulled a gun on a New Jersey woman after she asked him to jump her car while pulled over. Under the terms of the deal, Fivio admitted to one count of third-degree terroristic threats in return for prosecutors dropping four other charges, including unlawful possession of a weapon and aggravated assault.

Tupac Shakur’s estate is threatening to sue Drake over a recent diss track against Kendrick Lamar that featured an AI-generated version of the late rapper’s voice, calling it a “a flagrant violation” of the law and a “blatant abuse” of his legacy.
In a Wednesday cease-and-desist letter obtained exclusively by Billboard, litigator Howard King told Drake (Aubrey Drake Graham) that he must confirm that he will pull down his “Taylor Made Freestyle” in less than 24 hours or the estate would “pursue all of its legal remedies” against him.

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“The Estate is deeply dismayed and disappointed by your unauthorized use of Tupac’s voice and personality,” King wrote in the letter. “Not only is the record a flagrant violation of Tupac’s publicity and the estate’s legal rights, it is also a blatant abuse of the legacy of one of the greatest hip-hop artists of all time. The Estate would never have given its approval for this use.”

Drake released “Taylor Made” on Friday, marking the latest chapter in a back-and-forth war of words between the Canadian rapper and Lamar. Beyond taking shots at both Kendrick and Taylor Swift, the track made headlines because of its prominent use of artificial intelligence technology to create fake verses from Tupac and Snoop Dogg – two West Coast legends idolized by the LA-based Lamar.

“Kendrick, we need ya, the West Coast savior/ Engraving your name in some hip-hop history,” the AI-generated Tupac raps in Drake’s song. “If you deal with this viciously/ You seem a little nervous about all the publicity.”

In Tuesday’s letter, Tupac’s estate warned Drake that the use of his voice clearly violated Tupac’s so-called publicity rights – the legal power to control how your image or likeness is used by others. And they took particular exception the use of his voice to take shots at Lamar.

“The unauthorized, equally dismaying use of Tupac’s voice against Kendrick Lamar, a good friend to the Estate who has given nothing but respect to Tupac and his legacy publicly and privately, compounds the insult,” King wrote.

A rep for Drake declined to comment on the demands of the Shakur estate.

It’s unclear if Snoop Dogg, whose voice was also featured on “Taylor Made,” is planning to raise similar legal objections to Drake’s track. On Saturday, he posted a video to social media in which he seemed to be learning of the song for the first time: “They did what? When? How? Are you sure?” A rep for Snoop Dogg did not return a request for comment.

The unauthorized use of voice cloning technology has become one of the music industry’s thorniest legal subjects, as AI-powered tools have made easier than ever to convincingly mimic real artists.

The issue exploded onto the scene last year, when an unknown artist named Ghostwriter released a track called “Heart On My Sleeve” that featured – ironically – fake verses from Drake’s voice. Since then, as voice-cloning has proliferated on the internet, industry groups, legal experts and lawmakers have wrangled over how best to crack down on it.

It’s not as simple as it might seem. Federal copyrights are difficult to directly apply, since cloned vocals usually feature new words and music that are distinct from existing copyrighted songs. The publicity rights cited by the estate are a better fit because they protect someone’s likeness itself, but they have historically been used to sue over advertisements, rather than over creative works like songs.

Faced with that legal uncertainty, the recording industry and top artists have pushed for new legislation to address the problem. Last month, Tennessee passed a statute called the ELVIS Act that aims to crack down on voice cloning by expanding the state’s publicity right laws beyond just advertisements. Lawmakers in Washington DC are also considering similar bills that would create new, broader publicity rights at a federal level.

In Wednesday’s letter, however, the estate said that California’s existing publicity right laws clearly outlaw something as blatant as Drake’s use of Tupac’s voice in “Taylor Made.” King argued that the song had caused “substantial economic and reputational harm” by creating the “false impression that the estate and Tupac promote or endorse the lyrics for the sound-alike.”

The estate also argued that the song was likely created using an AI model that violated the estate’s copyrights by “training” on existing recordings of Tupac’s music. The legality of using copyrighted “inputs” is another difficult legal issue that’s currently being tested in several closely-watched lawsuits against AI developers, including one filed by major music publishers.

“It is hard to believe that [Tupac’s record label]’s intellectual property was not scraped to create the fake Tupac AI on the Record,” King wrote, before demanding that Drake also provide “a detailed explanation for how the sound-alike was created and the persons or company that created it, including all recordings and other data ‘scraped’ or used.”

Wednesday’s letter also pointedly highlighted that Drake himself has made previous objections to the use of his own likeness by others. In addition to last year’s incident surrounding “Heart on My Sleeve” — which was quickly pulled down from the internet — King pointed to a lesser-known federal lawsuit in which Drake’s attorneys accused a website of using his image without authorization.

“The [“Taylor Made Freestyle”] has generated well more than one million streams at this point and has been widely reported in the general national press and popular entertainment websites and publications,” the estate wrote. “Without question, it is exponentially more serious and damaging than a picture of you with some other people on a low volume website.”

In its closing paragraphs, the letter demanded written confirmation by noon Pacific on Thursday that Drake’s representatives were “expeditiously taking all steps necessary to have it removed.”

“If you comply, the estate will consider whether an informal negotiation to resolve this matter makes sense,” King wrote. “If you do not comply, our client has authorized this firm to pursue all of its legal remedies including, but not limited to, an action for violation of … the estate’s copyright, publicity and personality rights and the resulting damages, injunctive relief, and punitive damages and attorneys’ fees.”