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A viral AI-generated song imitating Drake and The Weeknd was pulled from streaming services this week, but did it breach copyright as claimed by record label Universal?

Created by someone called @ghostwriter, Heart On My Sleeve racked up millions of listens before Universal Music Group asked for its removal from Spotify, Apple Music and other platforms.

However, Andres Guadamuz, who teaches intellectual property law at Britain’s University of Sussex, is not convinced that the song breached copyright.

As similar cases look set to multiply — with an uncanny AI replication of Liam Gallagher from Oasis causing buzz — he spoke to AFP about some of the issues being raised.

Did the song breach copyright?

The underlying music on Heart On My Sleeve was new, only the sound of the voice was familiar, “and you can’t copyright the sound of someone’s voice,” Guadamuz said.

Perhaps the furor around AI impersonators may lead to copyright being expanded to include voice, rather than just melody, lyrics and other created elements, “but that would be problematic,” Guadamuz added.

“What you’re protecting with copyright is the expression of an idea, and voice isn’t really that,” he said. 

He said Universal probably claimed copyright infringement because it is the simplest route to removing content, with established procedures in place with streaming platforms.

Were other rights breached?

An AI-generated impersonator may be breaching other laws.

If an artist has a distinctive voice or image, this is potentially protected under “publicity rights” in the United States or similar image rights in other countries.

Bette Midler won a case against Ford in 1988 for using an impersonator of her in an ad. Tom Waits won a similar case in 1993 against the Frito-Lays potato chips company.

The problem, said Guadamuz, is that enforcement of these rights is “very hit and miss” and taken much more seriously in some countries than others.

And streaming platforms currently lack straightforward mechanisms for removing content seen as breaching image rights.

What comes next?

The big upcoming legal fight is over how AI programs are trained.

It may be argued that inputting existing Drake and Weeknd songs to train an AI program may be a breach of copyright, but Guadamuz said this issue was far from settled.

“You need to copy the music in order to train the AI and so that unauthorized copying could potentially be copyright infringement,” he said.

“But defendants will say it’s fair use. They are using it to train a machine, teaching it to listen to music, and then removing the copies,” he said. “Ultimately, we will have to wait and see for the case law to be decided.”

But it is almost certainly too late to stem the flood.

“Bands are going to have to decide whether they want to pursue this in court, and copyright cases are expensive,” said Guadamuz.

“Some artists may lean into the technology and start using it themselves, especially if they start losing their voice.” 
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The guardians of Champagne will let no one take the name of the bubbly beverage in vain, not even a U.S. beer behemoth.

For years, Miller High Life has used the “Champagne of Beers” slogan. This week, that appropriation became impossible to swallow.

At the request of the trade body defending the interests of houses and growers of the northeastern French sparkling wine, Belgian customs crushed more than 2,000 cans of Miller High Life advertised as such.

The Comité Champagne asked for the destruction of a shipment of 2,352 cans on the grounds that the century-old motto used by the American brewery infringes the protected designation of origin “Champagne.”

The consignment was intercepted in the Belgian port of Antwerp in early February, a spokesperson at the Belgian Customs Administration said on Friday, and was destined for Germany. Belgian customs declined to say who had ordered the beers.

The buyer in Germany “was informed and did not contest the decision,” the trade organization said in a statement.

Frederick Miller, a German immigrant to the US, founded the Miller Brewing Company in the 1850s. Miller High Life, its oldest brand, was launched as its flagship in 1903.

According to the Milwaukee-based brand’s website, the company started to use the “Champagne of Bottle Beers” nickname three years later. It was shortened to “The Champagne of Beers” in 1969. The beer has also been available in champagne-style 750-milliliter bottles during festive seasons.

No matter how popular the slogan is in the United States, it is incompatible with European Union rules which make clear that goods infringing a protected designation of origin can be treated as counterfeit.

The 27-nation bloc has a system of protected geographical designations created to guarantee the true origin and quality of artisanal food, wine and spirits, and protect them from imitation. That market is worth nearly 75 billion euros ($87 billion) annually — half of it in wines, according to a 2020 study by the EU’s executive arm.

Charles Goemaere, the managing director of the Comité Champagne, said the destruction of the beers “confirms the importance that the European Union attaches to designations of origin and rewards the determination of the Champagne producers to protect their designation.”

Molson Coors Beverage Co., which which owns the Miller High Life brand, said in a statement to The Associated Press that it “respects local restrictions” around the word Champagne.

“But we remain proud of Miller High Life, its nickname and its Milwaukee, Wisconsin provenance,” the company said. “We invite our friends in Europe to the U.S. any time to toast the High Life together.”

Molson Coors Beverage Co. added that it does not currently export Miller High Life to the EU and “we frankly don’t quite know how or why it got there, or why it was headed for Germany.”

Belgian customs said the destruction of the cans was paid for by the Comité Champagne. According to their joint statement, it was carried out “with the utmost respect for environmental concerns by ensuring that the entire batch, both contents and container, was recycled in an environmentally responsible manner.”
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Muslims in Minneapolis can now hear their call to prayer broadcast five times a day from mosques around the city, thanks to a new law. From Minneapolis, Mohamud Mascadde has the story, narrated by Salem Solomon.
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A man paces a 50-meter stage doing breathing exercises. Crew members chatter while putting together final touches to the set, as a pianist rehearses.

Acclaimed South African artist William Kentridge’s play “The Head & The Load” is almost ready for its much-awaited African debut.

“Being able to show it at home feels very important,” Kentridge told AFP of the show, which centers on African porters who, at the call of their colonial masters, hauled arms, cannons and supplies for European forces during World War I.

The production made its international debut in London in 2018 but has never been shown on African soil.

That is set to change on Friday as, after delays caused by coronavirus pandemic, the piece is set to premier at the Joburg Theatre in Johannesburg.

“This piece is about a hidden history, a history that was deliberately hidden,” Kentridge, 67, said as the cast took their places for a final dress rehearsal on Thursday night.

About one million African soldiers, porters and laborers are believed to have taken part in the 1914-18 conflict, according to the United Nations cultural agency, UNESCO.

More than 150,000 of them died.

“I think a starting place of the project was an ignorance, and an annoyance at my own self at my own ignorance,” the artist said. “I thought I knew the First World War.”

‘Troubles of the neck’

“The Head & The Load” takes its name from a Ghanaian proverb — “The head and the load are the troubles of the neck”.  At the rehearsal, the words are projected in enormous white text onto the stage.

But it takes a brief explanation, and a moment of reflection, to better understand their meaning.

“There’s… a physical load that the people are carrying, there’s a historical load of how we got here, and there’s a psychic load of how does one keep this history in one’s head,” Kentridge said.

Renowned for his animated films of shape-shifting charcoal drawings, the thickly eye-browed artist described the show as “a very wide drawing… moving in three dimensions”, combined with silhouettes, “added text and a great deal of music.”

Choreographer Gregory Maqoma said he looked forward to performing for a home audience.

The production aimed at “fulfilling” a void for “those who never made it back home,” he said.

Among them was a distant relative of the show’s co-composer, 35-year-old, Thuthuka Sibisi, who said one of his ancestors died on board the SS Mendi, a British steamship that sank in the Channel in February 1917.

The vessel was taking more than 600 mostly black South African soldiers to the front in France.

“The role and responsibility here is to… reconsider what we think is history” Sibisi said.

“The Head & The Load” runs at the Joburg Theatre from April 21 to May 6.
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Moon Bin, a singer from South Korean boy band Astro, was found dead at his home in Seoul, his management agency said Thursday.

The 25-year-old was reportedly found by his manager who went to the singer’s home Wednesday evening because he wasn’t responding to contacts. Police are investigating his death but have so far found no signs of foul play, according to South Korea’s Yonhap news agency. Officials at Seoul’s Gangnam district police station did not respond to calls for comment.

Moon Bin’s management agency, Fantagio, confirmed his death in a statement, saying that he “suddenly left us and became a star in the sky” and that fellow artists and company staff were mourning him with “very deep sadness and shock.”

Fantagio said Moon Bin’s funeral will be held “as quietly as possible,” with the attendance mostly limited to family, close friends and colleagues, based on the wishes of his relatives.

‘Always bright’

Moon Bin began his music career in 2016 as a member of the six-member boy band Astro, which debuted shortly after the singers appeared in a TV reality show. The group quickly found success in South Korea and Japan and was listed on Billboard’s top 10 list of new K-pop groups that year, with the magazine praising them for their “bright, synthpop sound that won over K-pop lovers from around the world.”

According to Billboard, Astro had seven albums on the magazine’s World Albums Chart with Moon Bin as a member, peaking at Number 5 in 2017 with “Dream Part.02.”

Fans flooded Moon Bin’s social media accounts with comments expressing grief and shock over his death, which came months after he renewed his contract with Fantagio along with four other Astro members.

“It’s hard to believe,” radio host Jang Seong-kyu wrote on Instagram. “We only met several times over broadcasts, but whenever we met, Moon Bin was always bright and expressed immense love for his family. I can’t imagine the pain he was going through.”

Moon Bin had also performed as a member of the duo Moonbin & Sanha with Astro bandmate Yoon San-ha. Indonesian event promoter Lumina Entertainment on Wednesday announced the cancellation of the duo’s performance in Jakarta due to “unforeseen circumstances beyond our control.”

Helix Publicity, a U.S.-based public relations agency that has represented Moonbin & Sanha, issued a statement on Twitter that it was “absolutely heartbroken.”

“Sending our thoughts, prayers, and deepest condolences to Moon Bin’s family, friends, loved ones, and to AROHA who always cheered for him and supported him,” it said, referring to the name that Astro’s fans call themselves.

Moon Bin entered the entertainment industry as a child actor and landed a role in the 2009 TV series “Boys Over Flowers,” which was hugely popular in Asia. His sister, Moon Sua, is also a K-pop artist, a member of the girl band Billlie.

Stars’ deaths prompt questions

Several South Korean singers and actors have died by suicide in recent years, which has touched off soul-searching about harsh competition in the fast-growing entertainment industry, an abusive online culture and failure by management to address the mental health problems of their stars.

Last week, 26-year-old actress Jung Chae-yull was found dead at her home. Her agency did not say what caused her sudden death.
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