A song featuring the voices of Drake and The Weeknd has just amassed over 11 million views on TikTok and 250,000 Spotify streams. Named “Heart on My Sleeve,” neither of the two artists had any idea of the song until it went viral. In fact, none of the renowned musicians had their names in the artist tag.
Instead, the artist went by the name “Ghostwriter.” And as you can guess, the song was generated fully by AI. Drake and The Weeknd did not respond to the AI-generated song yet. However, Ghostwriter did upload a screen recording through a tweet, describing the fake collaboration as a “modern Napster Moment.”
All About the Fake Drake and The Weeknd Music
Before Ghostwriter posted “Heart on My Sleeve” on TikTok, the song made its initial debut on streaming services. The fake Drake and The Weeknd song was first uploaded on Apple Music and Spotify on April 4. Want to know who Ghostwriter is and why the AI artist decided to pop out from nowhere?
The creator was a ghostwriter for years and got paid nearly nothing for major labels. At least, that is what Ghostwriter stated in the comments of two recently uploaded videos. Moreover, with the upload of the fake Drake and The Weeknd music, Ghostwriter stated, “The future is here.”
But how good is the fake song? To be honest, the verses are fire! “I came in with my ex like Selena to flex, Bumpin’ Justin Bieber, the fever ain’t left.” Those are the starting verses of the fake Drake and The Weeknd music.
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Although the verses sung by the fake AI Drake are a bit convincing, the Weeknd’s verses failed to accurately capture his musical essence. At least, that is what I believe. That said, the original uploads of Ghostwriter have now been taken down. But I did find the fake Drake and The Weeknd song on YouTube. So, if you like to give the AI-generated song a try, search for “Heart on My Sleeve,” and the song should pop up.
AI-Generated Music: Is the Future Actually Here?
The thing is, copyright law is not technologically advanced enough to have specific guidelines about generative AI. However, in the existing state of the legal code, transformative parody is permissible. So, is the fake Drake x The Weeknd song considered “transformative?”
All these laws are very much open to interpretation, as the data of what makes a work “transformative” is subjective. For that reason, whether you want to consider the fake Drake and The Weeknd song to be transformative is pretty much up to you.
Nonetheless, UMG has recently taken some serious steps to prevent the proliferation of AI-generated music. These steps specifically focus on the songs that try to rip off the artists. According to a report from Financial Times, UMG asked streaming services to prevent AI companies from getting access to the music libraries.
After all, the brand-new Drake x The Weeknd song would not have existed if Ghostwriter could not train the AI model with existing songs. UMG representative said in a statement, “We have the moral and commercial responsibility to our artists to work to prevent the unauthorized use of their music.”
The representative further added that AI-generated music brings out one big dilemma for all the stakeholders. If music such as the recent Drake x The Weeknd song is allowed to exist, the stakeholders in the music ecosystem will fail to settle on which side they want to be on.
But yes, once any kind of artistic work becomes a part of a dataset, it becomes pretty hard to remove it. Considering that, you can expect to see more Drake and The Weeknd songs being released in the upcoming days. But they might not become as viral as the song that’s the highlight of this discussion.
