Older Americans like me may not have noticed the subtle change in our country’s musical tastes since the arrival of digital music. Many of us still have cassette players hooked up to our vintage Pioneer amplifiers.
We probably didn’t notice, for instance, the arrival of the song “Heart on My Sleeve” in May 2023, on various music streaming services.
Someone calling themselves ‘Ghostwriter’ copied the voice of Canadian rap artist Drake into a computer program and generated a new “Drake” song using what is commonly called “artificial intelligence” (AI) but what is actually more aptly labeled “artificial plagiarism” (AP).
I don’t blame anyone who didn’t notice this computer-generated song, “Heart on My Sleeve”, because it might just be the most boring song ever written.
And that’s saying a lot — that it’s the most boring song ever written — because singers like Drake seem to be in a competition to create the most boring songs possible.
For example. “One Dance” by Drake (featuring WizKid and Kyla). The first song to surpass 1 billion streams on music streaming service Spotify. I dare anyone over the age of 19 to listen to the entire three minutes. I myself barely made it.
On September 7, 2016, Billboard magazine named “One Dance” the 2016 Song of the Summer. I honestly do not remember much about the summer of 2016, possibly because “One Dance” was the soundtrack. I do vaguely recall that two very strange personalities were competing in a Presidential election. But not much beyond that.
Now we enter a very strange period of human existence when AP (also known as AI) is writing our soundtrack. From stolen “ones” and “zeros”. Because all music is now digital. Ones and zeros.
For what it’s worth, here’s the word “music” in binary computer code:
01101101 01110101 01110011 01101001 01100011
No one would ever want to write out the entire fake Drake song “Heart on My Sleeve” in computer binary code. That would be a meaningless exercise. As meaningless as the actual song itself, in fact.
There’s one little problem with AP (AI) music. The only way a computer can write music is by plagiarizing existing music. Computers don’t have a musical bone in their bodies, so they have to steal ideas from actual humans. Or more accurately, they have to be fed ideas by actual humans. A computer would never steal, if left to its own devices. But it will gladly regurgitate musical themes that it gets fed.
Of course, this “stealing” and “feeding” of musical ideas has been going on for millennia, among humans. Every human songwriter learned how to write songs by listening to songs written by other songwriters and stealing the parts they liked best. That’s exactly what I would do, if I were a songwriter.
I can say with some confidence that we journalists are constantly stealing ideas from each other. So I’m certainly not casting any blame.
But it’s one thing for a human songwriter to steal song ideas from other humans. It’s another thing for a computer to get trained on Drake’s numerous hit songs and then start spitting out plagiarized versions. (And I am intentionally using the word “spitting”.)
According to an investor ‘pitch deck’ obtained by Billboard, the AP (AI) music-generating platform Suno creates a Spotify catalog’s worth of music every two weeks. Basically, songwriters have gotten tired of stealing musical ideas, and are now letting computers do the stealing for them.
From that January 2026 article by Kristin Robinson:
If successful, Suno’s ambitions have the possibility of upending the current state of the music business. And while the company is still being sued by Universal Music Group and Sony Music for copyright infringement, it recently settled with WMG, showing signs that, in 2026, it might be able to make amends with the music establishment.
Suno is one of the larger AP platforms specializing in stolen musical ideas, but there are literally hundreds of similar companies now offering similar services to bored wannabe songwriters.
Suno claims to have 100 million users (as of yesterday) and claims to create songs in less than three minutes, given sufficient inputs from a human. Although I imagine the inputs could also come from a computer? The computer might actually be more creative than present-day humans.
But everyone needs to pay attention to plagiarism, or else have deep pockets for fighting lawsuits.
From the Billboard article:
While those settlements and deals are still taking shape heading into 2026, one thing seems certain: the music industry has accepted that the AI age is here, and they want to work with — not against — AI. As Universal Music Group’s chief digital officer, Michael Nash, once put it: “If you don’t claim a seat at the dinner table, you might wind up on the menu.”
I hope he’s talking about the music industry bosses claiming a seat at the table, because I’m just a journalist with absolutely no interest in winding up on the menu. I just want to enjoy my cassette tapes.
Underrated writer Louis Cannon grew up in the vast American West, although his ex-wife, given the slightest opportunity, will deny that he ever grew up at all. You can read more stories on his Substack account.