Are Those Jay-Z and Kendrick Lamar AI-Generated Verses Legal? An IP Lawyer Weighs In

By now you've probably heard the deepfake AI-generated verses mimicking rappers like Drake, Kendrick Lamar, Nas, and Jay-Z. While the technology was shaky at first, these days it's so eerily good it's almost impossible to even tell you're listening to a fake -- especially when the creator has the cadence and delivery of your favorite rapper down pat. As the world continues to immerse itself in AI -- from sophisticated language models like ChatGPT and Bing (or Sydney if you ask it the right way) to AI image generators, and more -- the lightening-fast pace of the technology seems to be outrunning society's ability to adapt to the new future. Deepfakes can be entertaining -- we all loved Kendrick Lamar's "The Heart Part 5" video, but they can also be scary, even dangerous. As Axios pointed out in February, right now generative AI is a legal minefield.