When the Beatles split up more than 50 years ago, saddened fans yearned for more. Artificial intelligence (AI) now provides precisely that. From “re-uniting” the Beatles on songs from their individual careers to re-imagining surviving superstar Paul McCartney’s latter works with his voice restored to its youthful peak, the new creations demonstrate how far this technology has progressed while also raising a slew of ethical and legal concerns.
“I’m crying!” “This is so beautiful!!!” commented a listener in a typical YouTube comment for a fan-created AI cover of McCartney’s 2013 hit, “New,” which incorporates de-aged vocals and a bridge passage “sung” by his late songwriting partner and buddy, John Lennon.
A rendition of “Grow Old With Me,” one of Lennon’s final songs, was posthumously released after his 1980 assassination and was recently redone by an AI creator known as “Dae Lims.” The song’s most affecting part comes when McCartney croons over a soaring melody with poignant lyrics about aging over an orchestral arrangement and harmonized backup voices that echo the Liverpool rockers’ heyday.
“I lose it when I hear this.” In a recent video describing the new compositions’ unexpected sentimental impact, music YouTuber Steve Onotera, who goes by “SamuraiGuitarist” and has a million subscribers, remarked, “I start crying.” After the most influential band in history parted ways acrimoniously, fans were deprived of a final “happy ending,” he said. “So when we do get that reunion artificially yet convincingly created by AI, it’s surprisingly emotional.”
While the results can be astounding, getting it isn’t easy and involves expert human operators combining new AI tools
These covers, like an earlier single called “Heart on a Sleeve,” which featured AI-generated vocals of Drake and The Weeknd and racked up millions of views on TikTok and other platforms, employ scraping technology that analyses and records the intricacies of a specific voice. The creators would have most likely sung the passages themselves before applying the cloned voice, much like using a filter to an image.
While the results can be astounding, getting it isn’t easy and involves expert human operators combining new AI tools with a vast understanding of older music processing software, according to Zohaib Ahmed, CEO of Toronto-based Resemble AI. “I think we’re still seeing a very small percentage of the population that can even access these tools,” he said. They need to “jump through hoops, read the documentation, have the right computer, and then put it all together.”
Ahmed’s company is one of several that provide a platform that can make technology more accessible to clients in the entertainment industry, and it counts a recent Netflix documentary series “narrated” by late art icon Andy Warhol as an early success. The current flurry of AI tunes, according to Patricia Alessandrini, a composer and assistant professor at Stanford’s Centre for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics, signals a coming-of-age for a technology that has been progressing enormously – but mostly out of public view – for the previous decade.
“This is a great example of what AI does very well, which is anything that’s resemblance: to train it on something existing,” she told AFP. But, she added, it flounders when it comes to new ideas. “There’s really no expectation that it’s going to replace the rich history of humans originating art and culture.” The implications for the music industry are huge. As technology advances, software that allows individuals to effortlessly change their vocals into one of their favorite artists is certainly not far future.
“If they’re getting paid for their vocal license, hey, everyone’s happy,” said Onotera. “But what if they’re long since passed away? Is it up to their estate?” AI is already proving a helter-skelter impact on the copyright world. In the case of “Heart on a Sleeve,” Universal Music Group was quick to assert copyright claims and have the track pulled down from streaming services, but that hasn’t stopped it from popping back up on small accounts.
AI-generated music, according to New York-based music copyright attorney Marc Ostrow, is a “grey area.” Both the owners of the master recordings and the songwriters whose work is exploited may claim copyright. However, AI developers can counter that it is “fair use” by citing a 2015 court decision that allowed Google to preserve the entire world’s books because it wasn’t in direct competition with booksellers and was only showing snippets.
The US Supreme Court, however, tilted the scales in the other direction last month when it ruled that a Warhol poster of the late pop sensation Prince had violated the copyright of the photographer who had taken the original picture.