Government proposals to allow Big Tech to scrape Britain’s musical archives will worsen the ‘epidemic’ of AI ‘deepfakes’ plaguing the internet, insiders have warned.
Record labels have revealed they are already sending tens of thousands of ‘take-down’ requests each year to platforms hosting fake songs claiming to be by the UK’s top artists.
With just a few clicks, users can create a convincing AI version of a track or music video – with many racking up millions of streams online.
Not only does this take money away from artists, but fans are also being duped into paying for what they believe is legitimate music.
Senior executives and trade bodies fear this battle will become far tougher if Labour goes ahead with its proposal to allow AI firms to use content for free.
Artists have automatic copyright protection that means tech firms should compensate them if they use their work to train AI models. But ministers favour a plan to give Big Tech an exception unless artists ‘opt out’.
At the Brit Awards on Saturday night, musicians such as Paloma Faith and McFly’s Danny Jones and Tom Fletcher pushed the campaign against Labour’s plans by posing with a sign bearing the slogan ‘Make It Fair’.
At the Brit Awards on Saturday night, musicians such as Paloma Faith pushed the campaign against Labour’s plans to allow AI firms to use content for free
Cher, pictured performing with Dua Lipa last year, has said: ‘If you work forever to become an artist and then someone just takes it from you, it seems like it should be illegal’
A source at one of the UK’s biggest record companies told the Mail it had issued 75,000 take-down requests of deepfakes over the past two years. ‘It’s an epidemic which will only get worse if the plan goes ahead,’ they said, adding that staff were having to search for fakes manually as they were so hard to detect.
And the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), which represents the recording business worldwide, said it now had a team of 40 helping labels trawl the internet for clones.
Melissa Morgia, the IFPI’s director of global content protection, said creating deepfakes is becoming easier as technology improves.
Beyonce last year told GQ magazine that an AI song ‘sounded so much like me it scared me’. While Cher told the Associated Press: ‘If you work forever to become an artist and then someone just takes it from you, it seems like it should be illegal.’
