The Legal Afterlife of AI-Generated Music

In 2023, an AI-generated song mimicking The Weekend and Drake went viral on social media. This popular track sparked an industry-wide debate about what, and who, counts as an artist. 

Even though social media platforms, like TikTok, removed the song within hours (the song was later re-uploaded on the platform by outside creators with the preface that it was an AI song), the damage was already done: everyone knew this concept was a possibility, and anyone with access to generative AI could now clone a musician’s voice and release convincing replicas. It was now more accessible for the average person to profit from deepfake AI music videos. 

AI “deepfake” tools and websites can now produce audio and video content faster than the law can respond. While big tech companies argue these creations fit under the “fair use” laws, California’s legislative developments tell a different story. California has been a pioneer of these new laws, creating groundbreaking court cases and industry reforms. The state’s new framework shows that California is uniquely equipped to redefine intellectual property rights in this new age of AI use. 

Current intellectual property (IP) law was built to protect all works (songs, lyrics, videos, written compositions, and movies) but not the artist’s voice or likeness. This left a critical gap in the law, as protecting an artist’s likeness was never thought of as an issue until the development of artificial intelligence. 

Now, AI can create accurate replicas using an artist’s voice, style, tone, and rhythm, elements that are key to an artist's brand and musical identity. These AI songs may seem like an infringement of an artist’s brand, but they could be argued as digital files and are therefore sometimes falling out of the scope of traditional IP law. 

AI is continuing to develop rapidly, and this loophole exposes how traditional IP law fails to keep pace with the complexities of modern technology, yet highlights the urgent need for new legal tools. 

In 2025, California passed Senate Bill 11 that directly addressed this gap. The success of this bill allowed for other similar legislation to follow. These new laws require explicit consent from the artists for AI-generated use of their likenesses, which expands protections for artists’ voices and digital replicas. These protections even extend to deceased performers, protecting their musical identity even after death. 

California’s emerging framework not only helped make significant contributions towards protecting the rights of musical artists but also served as an inspiration for other states to take action. 

A case that made a huge national impact was Anthropic v. Music Publishers (2025), heard in a California district court in January, which challenged whether AI models were legally allowed to train based on copyrighted music under “fair use.” Judges showed skepticism towards these broad defenses, which resulted in a federal judge rejecting Anthropic’s motion to dismiss the claims and for the case to move on further to discovery and trial in September. 

This paved the way for similar laws to follow suit: Tennessee’s ELVIS Act (2024) protects artists’ voices and likeness from unauthorized AI cloning, and New York legislators have proposed similar IP and publicity laws. This signals that other states have not only noticed the problem but have started following in California’s footsteps and begun to make a change.  

These legal conversations have also reached the private sector. Major talent agencies and record labels have begun adapting their contracts to include AI clauses, giving artists privacy and control over their voices and likenesses. 

Some companies argue for royalties within the production of AI replicas, ensuring that artists and companies continue to profit from their image and voice, while other companies attempt to prohibit the use of AI in totality. These industry adaptations suggest that both lawmakers and corporations recognize the balance of innovation with boundaries. 

California’s leadership in regulating AI “deepfakes” or voice replication provides an efficient blueprint for the nation to follow. Through increased judicial security—involving both the private sectors and music industry—and expanding IP protections, California demonstrates how the law can adapt and protect authenticity in the digital age. 

Still, inevitably, AI will continue to accelerate more quickly than legislation can follow, leading to a lag of legal change. Broader and faster national and international legislative reform is needed to ensure that artists are protected and human creativity is at the heart of the music industry.

Image source: Billboard