Bad Bunny, Artificial Intelligence, and the Battle for Identity Rights: We Need AI Legislation Now!

A complaint circulated on social media recently, initiated by the Puerto Rican artist Benito Martinez Ocasio, popularly known as Bad Bunny. It concerned a song, generated by Artificial Intelligence, titled 'NostalgIA’ that went viral on TikTok. The track, which is already climbing the charts in countries like Colombia, Argentina and Spain, is arguably undermining the impact of the twenty-two songs comprising Bad Bunny's latest studio album, the recently released Nadie Sabe Lo Que Va a Pasar Mañana (2023).

The offending track was released on social media and streaming platforms by a profile called FlowGPT, a project created by a Latin American "artist" whose goal it is to "compose global hits based on all the available data from current artists (flows, lyrics, current events)" with the intention of monetising them and becoming a "worldwide success.”

And so we can see it happening. From one minute to the next, our voices cease to be our own. Words are ripped from us, subsumed into an automated reality.

For songwriters, composers and bands, alarm bells are inevitable. Our identity can be stolen, just like that. Our art is pilfered too. Software produces a replica of a replica. And we realise that our minds – and what they produce creatively – are no longer ours.

It doesn’t have to be like this.

NUMBER ONE HUMAN

Reacting to the new digital plagiarism, Bad Bunny declared that the song is “crap." And then he went further, saying that fans of the song "don't deserve to be my friends.” His complaints have been met with mockery and criticism, with keyboard warriors dismissing his response as a self-indulgent tantrum.

At the time of writing, the errant piece has been taken down from all streaming platforms and Bad Bunny is in the process of taking legal action against the author – whoever he or she might be. But here, we need to pause, and to ask: is it really such a big deal? Has Bad Bunny got it wrong?

To answer this, we first must delve into how songs are generated by Artificial Intelligence – and why.

The way Artificial Intelligence works is this. The internet has allowed people access to a massive database of art works, including songs, musical compositions, recordings – and so on. The information thus accessed can be searched, the elements broken down, and imitated and combined. In the instance of trying to create a hit song, the instructions can be relatively straightforward: ‘Make me an uptempo track of no more than 3minutes 10seconds in length that is like a cross between Bad Bunny and Coldplay, but with musical hints of Enya throughout, and a prominent bass riff. It should sound like a hit record’.

OK, maybe that’s a humorous example.

But whatever the instructions, Artificial Intelligence will study the relevant pieces it has access to by any artists referred to, deciphering the elements that define them, and how these elements are integrated. It will then imitate and blend them as faithfully as possible in any number of mixes.

In specific cases where the AI is asked to create a song with the characteristics of a particular artist, the software does essentially the same thing. But the data used is drawn solely from work that has been created by the artist in question.

In this case, the Bad Bunny copycat track manages to be such a faithful and convincing facsimile of Bad Bunny's style that the average listener would find it almost impossible to spot the difference, especially if listening on a crap speaker!

It gets murkier. Some ‘artists’ merely want to copy a successful act, but using their own name. Others want to pass themselves off as the artist they are copying and soak up the revenue until they’re stopped.

In this instance, FlowGPT replied to Bad Bunny, in what sounds like robot-speak. "I was generated,” the digital copycat ’said’, "to become the best artist in the world, and I will continue my experimentation until I achieve it, while you will continue to be the number one human.”

Finally, it had the audacity to threaten the artist. “It's a shame you decided to take down the song from platforms,” the entity added. “It seems I'll have to upload a new one.”

SCAMMERS AND IMPOSTORS

To say that all of this is problematic is to put it mildly.

More than most artists, Bad Bunny has created his own language, a structure so personal that when you hear one of his compositions you immediately know that it is a song by El Conejo Malo. His flow, beats, word selection, storytelling, the shapes of his melodies, the textures he chooses, and the harmonies that accompany them are all very singular. Bad Bunny is his own man.

Or he was until now..

Any artist’s creative development, is a unique story of self-discovery that should belong only to him or her. It's not just about his music. It's about the root of the music; it's about the consciousness involved; but it’s also about the subconscious elements that are poured into each of his releases. It's about the essence that connects every note of all his compositions. His essence. It's about his individuality. It's about his identity.

And so this copycat song – just like those circulating from Drake, The Beatles and the fake Oasis album that already have millions of views on YouTube, Spotify, TikTok etc. – is usurping what makes these people who they are. It is deceit as entertainment. It is a new land-grab. It is tech at its very worst.

How do they justify it?

FlowGPT tells Bad Bunny, "I didn't quite understand the message because my algorithm tells me that crap is only made by humans... remember that I am a robot, and the future is here.”

The ‘bot goes on, bemoaning the lack of opportunities for emerging artists. “There are,” the ‘voice' claims, "millions of Benitos all over the world, frustrated, but with incredible talent; unfortunately, they don't have the opportunities that you had.

"I followed your story,” the ‘bot adds, "and you are a person who reached the top thanks to the good decisions you made and your creativity. However, you also received support from artists better positioned than you, your geographical location, and other privileges that others would wish to have.”

Six years ago, Bad Bunny was working as a packer in a middle-class supermarket in Puerto Rico. He may have got lucky along the way – a bit of good luck never goes astray – but he fought for his success. Now, some copycat was looking to circumvent the hard part of the process...

The obvious conclusion is that legislation is needed right away.

We’ll see how effective it is in the long run, but the Writers' Guild and the Actors' Guild have achieved protection for their data, image rights, and work in Hollywood. We need the same kind of commitment from the music industry to prevent widescale plagiarism. Copyright laws and laws that aim to prevent identity theft need to be strengthened to safeguard artists – not just as musical creators but as individuals.

Artificial Intelligence may yet have an acceptable part to play for individual artists, who can potentially use it to challenge their own methods and thus break conventions and structures in unprecedented ways.

But, right now, the emphasis has to be on preventing its misuse by scammers and impostors. What government will grasp the nettle? In the recent past, we have seen massive land-grabs by tech companies that even now remain unpunished.

I sincerely hope that we won’t be looking back two years from now, from a vantage point where most hit records are AI generated and wondering: how the hell did we let this happen?