When You Don't Own You
James O'Connell
Business lawyer with particular interest in the wine sector and crypto
Did you see the story in The Times about deepfake music generated by AI?
You can understand why music artists are angry. Jammable, previously called Voicify, wants to use AI to create new songs in the style of famous singers and bands. It also wants the AI to ‘sing’ the songs, using a voice indistinguishable from the original musician.
And then it wants to blatantly sell the songs using the musician’s name – and all without even speaking to the musician first or sharing sales revenue. What’s not to get angry over?
Make no mistake, in any legal action Jammable is going to go down in flames.
To create songs in the style of famous singers and bands, AI has to dissect and copy from existing songs: hence the allegations of copyright infringement.
By using the name of the musicians, they are trading off those artists’ hard-won reputation. People will assume it is being done with the musicians’ consent: which is a breach of the ancient law about misleading consumers, called the law of passing off. There is likely to be trademark infringement too (no, it’s not fraud because Jammable openly admits that it’s using an AI generated deepfake).
Really, we should all be rooting for the British Phonograph Industry which is acting for musicians and trying to stop this somewhat parasitical venture.
Whilst I am sure it is not its intent, the fact is that Jammable is corroding the right of each of us to be ourselves; to own our own image; and to have a say in what is created and offered in our name. It starts with a few famous musicians but what can be done to them can be done to the rest of us too.??