The tune should have never been uploaded to begin with... I remix artists, but use their actual vocals, and never release remixes that aren't properly cleared...
Putting out unauthorized work by others (for profit), especially when it emulates that they actually created the product, can harm their reputation. Putting out unauthorized work from musicians (for profit) often represents that the work was cleared... It's a move to either generate attention for the tool that they used, or for the emulation services they provide as "musicians", or even worse it could be a scam to make money off of putting out counterfeit music... I guess whoever was behind it (and now there will likely be even more of this) figures the legal issues that arise are worth the risk in seeking whatever profit may come from breaking common rules of music production such as this.
It's troubling to see this happen as an Indie musician amid the already overly complex scam environment within the music industry.
The legality of doing this depends on either the AI related lawsuits that have already been filed or legislative bodies answering the legal questions through new laws.
Copying a voice isn't banned, per se. You can do a perfect impersonation of someone without fear of violating any copyright.
Distributing recorded samples, however, is a clear copyright violation.
So, does AI merely make an impersonation or is it combining files that you have no right to distribute to form the voice? Are images in the Stable Diffusion dataset partially embedded in the outputs or not? Are the stories ChatGPT writes just weapons grade copyright infringement?
It all depends on how many rights we all attribute to the things we stuff into AI datasets. If AI models are ruled to be some kind of special case where the output doesn't violate the copyright if the training dataset, I think AI voice cloning should be completely legal.
I believe the music and movie industries will do what they can to get the law on their side, perhaps demanding royalties for every work of theirs in AI datasets. Maybe they'll demand payment per generated work. I believe Universal is already demanding their partners to stop blocking scrapers for use in AI.
I have no idea how a judge will rule on this. Based on the little work from professionals I've seen, it could go either way with current copyright laws.
Putting out unauthorized work by others (for profit), especially when it emulates that they actually created the product, can harm their reputation. Putting out unauthorized work from musicians (for profit) often represents that the work was cleared... It's a move to either generate attention for the tool that they used, or for the emulation services they provide as "musicians", or even worse it could be a scam to make money off of putting out counterfeit music... I guess whoever was behind it (and now there will likely be even more of this) figures the legal issues that arise are worth the risk in seeking whatever profit may come from breaking common rules of music production such as this.
It's troubling to see this happen as an Indie musician amid the already overly complex scam environment within the music industry.