Is the Night Yanggaeng Sung by Park Myungsoo?…The Temptation of Millions of Views 'AI Cover Song'

Training AI with Celebrity Voices for Imitation
Beware of Copyright Infringement from Unauthorized Audio Reprocessing

Recently, so-called 'AI cover songs,' where artificial intelligence (AI) is trained on the voices of celebrities to imitate specific songs, have gained popularity. However, extracting voices without the consent of the celebrities and reprocessing the audio may constitute copyright infringement, requiring caution. There are also concerns that celebrity voices could be commercially misappropriated without authorization.

On the 21st, a search for AI cover songs on YouTube revealed numerous audio tracks that singers had never actually performed. These included videos such as comedian Park Myung-su singing singer Bibi's new song "Bamyanggan" or American rapper Kanye West singing singer Jung In's ballad "Oreumakgil." One AI cover song featuring singer Oh Hyuk's voice recorded 440,000 views within a month of posting. A video of Queen's vocalist Freddie Mercury singing IU's song surpassed 1.39 million views.

These videos were produced by training AI on the voices of specific celebrities extracted from audio tracks and then applying them to other singers' songs. The process involved separating the MR (music recording) and the singer's voice from the audio, then converting the vocal file into the voice of a pre-trained celebrity using AI tools.

Voices Have No Copyright... But Singers' 'Right of Publicity' May Be Violated

Some express concern over the rapid proliferation of AI cover songs. They argue that AI cover songs infringe on the rights of the original performers and creators of the audio tracks.

In the legal community, the prevailing view is that AI cover songs violate the performer's moral rights of publicity. Under current law, a person's voice itself is not defined as a copyrighted work and thus is not protected by copyright law. However, unauthorized use of a celebrity's signature, voice, etc., causing economic loss, constitutes an infringement of the right of publicity. The right of publicity regards a person's voice as a form of property, allowing claims for damages if used for commercial purposes.

Attorney Yang Jin-young of Minhoo Law Firm explained, "A person's voice is closer to personal information than a copyrighted work, so copyright infringement cannot be claimed," but added, "If economic benefits are gained using a specific person's voice, it can be seen as an infringement of the right of publicity."

AI cover songs of singers Sung Si-kyung and Oh Hyuk posted on YouTube. [Image=YouTube screen capture]

There is also an opinion that AI cover songs infringe on the neighboring rights of performers. Singers and musicians do not directly create copyrighted works but play a role in delivering or mediating them, thus are granted rights similar to copyright.

Attorney Moon Jin-gu of Sejong Law Firm stated, "The principle is to obtain permission when replicating a performer's song," and explained, "While some argue that AI cover songs are new creations generated through AI learning, there is also a view that using a specific singer's song for AI training without permission itself infringes on the performer's rights."

Extracting Audio and Posting on SNS... Constitutes Copyright Infringement of Original Creator

From the original creator's perspective, AI cover songs may constitute copyright infringement. Extracting audio during the production of AI cover songs infringes on the reproduction rights of the sound recording. Additionally, posting the audio on social networking services (SNS) without the original creator's permission, allowing the general public to access it, is considered a violation of the public transmission rights under copyright law.

Attorney Yang said, "Since the process of training AI involves reproducing and transmitting audio without authorization, it can be seen as infringing on the original creator's copyright."

For these reasons, copyright organizations argue that companies developing AI tools should pay royalties. A representative from the Korea Music Copyright Association stated, "AI companies infringe on reproduction and public transmission rights but do not pay royalties to the original creators," adding, "Since existing copyrighted works are used in the process of AI learning to produce new results, it is necessary to obtain permission and usage rights from the original creators."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.