AI Oasis Tribute Album Sparks Debate Over Copyright and the Future of Music

Oasis is back! Except, not really. Thanks to artificial intelligence, however, the iconic ’90s band is certainly back in the news. A new album released by British rock band Breezer, “AIsis: The Lost Tapes,” replicates the Oasis vibe so well that it has been viewed over 40,000 times on YouTube since it was uploaded on Friday.

It sounds like Oasis lead singer Liam Gallagher is killing it on the vocal track, but he wasn’t involved in the project at all. All of the music and lyrics were written and performed by Breezer.

“With all the advancements in A.I. technology and the models people have been building, we thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be cool if we put Liam on these tunes?’” Breezer co-founder and guitarist Chris Woodgates told Decrypt in an interview.

“Initially, we didn’t expect anyone to pay much attention to our project,” Woodgates said. “We shared it with our mates, who loved it and uploaded it to YouTube, where it just kind of exploded.”

Founded in 2021, Breezer began when Woodgates and co-writer Bobby Geraghty started writing songs in 2013, but it wasn’t until after the COVID lockdowns that they decided to start a band, Woodgates recalled.

Woodgates said the “AIsis” project, which used A.I. to generate a voice replica of the Oasis frontman, aims to pay homage to Oasis—which he called a big influence—and not capitalize on its work.

“I think that it has opened up this conversation in the music industry of what it’s gonna look like,” Woodgates said. “This idea that you can collaborate with artists or bands that you love, I think it immortalizes these iconic sounds and singers.”

Woodgates did, however, acknowledge the legal gray area around copyright in which “AIsis” and similar projects now find themselves.

On Monday, an A.I.-generated collaboration between Drake and The Weeknd that never happened, “Heart on My Sleeve,” was pulled from Apple, YouTube, and Spotify after a complaint by Universal Music said the work—created by digital artist Ghostwriter—violated copyright laws.

The music industry has seen a lot of changes over the years, from vinyl records to cassette tapes, CDs, and now digital downloads and streaming. Cover songs and sampling have blurred lines between tributes and imitations. But using artificial intelligence to create new recordings of famous musicians without their participation raises serious questions about the future of music—similar to questions raised by using computer-generated recreations of deceased actors in films.

The A.I. copyright dispute is not the first time the music industry has come head to head with technology and the internet, either. Heavy metal band Metallica famously filed a lawsuit against the popular file sharing platform Napster in 2000 claiming a breach of copyright laws after discovering that the band’s music was being shared freely online without permission. Lawsuits from other recording artists, including Dr. Dre, and several recording companies followed.

“This wouldn’t be a straight copyright issue but could encompass issues involving trademark and patent law, based on how the A.I. was trained to read, extract, and write data,” attorney and CEO of AR Media Andrew Rossow told Decrypt.

“Although the standard infringement analysis can be applied to an A.I. program and its instructions to assess ‘substantial similarity,’ courts will still need to address questions concerning ‘authorship’ and the A.I. algorithm itself, starting with jurisdiction,” Rossow said.

Woodgates said the band is not opposed to using A.I. for future songs but will see how the “AIsis” project plays out.

“I think we’re going to start to see some pushback,” Woodgates said. “So we’re just going to see how it plays out. But we’re definitely keen to do more. I think it’s an interesting thing.”

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