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By\u00a0Alex Nino Gheciu The Canadian Press\n <\/p>\n
Cadence Weapon never gave artificial intelligence permission to learn from his music.<\/p>\n
But the Edmonton-raised rapper, born Rollie Pemberton, says he recently found 129 of his songs in datasets used to train AI music generators.<\/p>\n
He was alarmed, but not surprised. To Pemberton, it\u2019s part of a broader fight musicians face as AI-generated music floods streaming platforms and companies train models on existing creative work, often without artists\u2019 knowledge or consent.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt definitely feels like an existential struggle for artists today against AI,\u201d he says. \u201cIt feels challenging to navigate on a few different levels because AI inherently relies on scraping existing data.\u201d<\/p>\n
The concerns come as Canada\u2019s music industry pushes for rules requiring AI companies to compensate the songwriters and musicians whose work helps power their systems.<\/p>\n
The federal government is currently holding a public consultation on AI transparency, asking what meaningful and practical disclosure should look like as the technology becomes increasingly embedded across the economy. The consultation runs until Sept. 23, with music organizations, including SOCAN and Music Publishers Canada, preparing submissions.<\/p>\n
Pemberton says he\u2019s already seen AI creep into recording sessions, with some producers using the technology to generate elements such as drum parts \u2014 an approach he rejects. Now, he\u2019s watching it creep into the charts, too.<\/p>\n
Earlier this month, Los Angeles rapper Fenix Flexin acknowledged on social media he used AI on his viral hit \u201cRUBBERZ,\u201d calling it a tool artists must \u201ckeep up\u201d with or \u201cget left behind.\u201d The synth-pop track, sung in a Morrissey-like affectation, reached No. 58 on the Billboard Hot 100.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Compton rapper Tyga said he used AI on his new album \u201c$tarface,\u201d while superproducer Dr. Dre recently said he uses AI as \u201ca tool for creativity.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pemberton is less enthused. He sees independent artists getting squeezed from both sides: their work helps train AI systems, while the resulting music competes for the same listeners.<\/p>\n
Apple Music vice-president Oliver Schusser said earlier this year that \u201cmore than a third\u201d of tracks uploaded to the platform were \u201c100% AI.\u201d Streamer Deezer recently said about 44 per cent of new songs it receives each day are AI-generated. Spotify, meanwhile, said last year it had removed 75 million \u201cspammy\u201d AI-generated tracks from its service.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s flooding every platform with slop and diluting payments even more on Spotify,\u201d Pemberton says. \u201cThese slop merchants are making it even worse for artists than it already was.\u201d<\/p>\n
For the music industry, the issue is not simply whether songs are being used to train models. It\u2019s that AI music generators have been largely unwilling to say what they are using.<\/p>\n
WHERE DID AI LEARN TO SING?<\/p>\n
Music Publishers Canada CEO Margaret McGuffin says the organization frequently hears from songwriters and publishers who discover their music has appeared in AI training datasets.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe believe that this is an infringement of copyright,\u201d says the head of the non-profit representing music publishers and their songwriting partners.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose companies that are doing that scraping and training of those songs need to pay, and there needs to be consent. There needs to be transparency also, in terms of what\u2019s been scraped and what\u2019s been used to train models.\u201d<\/p>\n
In June, an investigation published by The Atlantic found four giant datasets containing more than 21 million music tracks that had circulated among AI developers as training material for creating AI models. The publication said they were discovered by examining AI research papers and scouring data-sharing sites where developers exchange training data.<\/p>\n
The datasets allegedly included music by independent Canadian artists such as Backxwash, Luna Li, Tre Mission, Lunice and Nemahsis. Several complained on social media that they believed their work had been used without permission or compensation.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m sure there are positive uses for AI but I don\u2019t think that stealing existing humans\u2019 work is the way to do it,\u201d says Grammy-winning Canadian roots artist Allison Russell. Forty of her songs appear in The Atlantic\u2019s database of music identified in AI training datasets.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re learning without consent from everything that\u2019s out there and then trying to imitate it. We need legal guardrails, frankly. It\u2019s high-tech theft.\u201d<\/p>\n
AI companies have generally argued that training models on publicly available material qualifies as fair use under copyright law. Suno, which is facing litigation in the U.S. from major record labels, has acknowledged training its model on \u201ctens of millions\u201d of recordings from the \u201copen internet,\u201d many of them copyrighted, but says the practice is lawful.<\/p>\n
Suno did not respond to email requests for comment. Two other popular platforms, Udio and Treblo, also did not provide comment for this article.<\/p>\n
The datasets that have been revealed don\u2019t show which AI companies used the music for training.<\/p>\n
Artists often have no concrete way to prove their music was used.<\/p>\n
That lack of transparency is one of the biggest obstacles to enforcing copyright, says Fraser Turnbull, head of legal and policy at SOCAN.<\/p>\n
\u201cWithout knowing whether or not your work has been used, that\u2019s the difficult part of enforcing your rights,\u201d Turnbull says. \u201cYou have to at least prove some of the elements of copyright infringement.\u201d<\/p>\n
WHO GETS PAID WHEN AI MAKES HITS?<\/p>\n
SOCAN is among the music bodies pushing for federal rules requiring AI developers to report what goes into their systems.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are looking for a transparency legislation from the Canadian government to say if you are a developer of an AI system, you have to disclose everything that that AI system trained on,\u201d Turnbull says.<\/p>\n
The performance rights organization recently announced an exploratory collaboration with Musical AI, a company developing music-attribution technology.<\/p>\n
They\u2019re testing whether the platform can identify existing works that contributed to an AI-generated output \u2014 potentially allowing the creators whose music helped shape it to be compensated.<\/p>\n
The project remains in the proof-of-concept stage, with no system yet implemented.<\/p>\n
One challenge is scale. If an AI-generated song contains hundreds of tiny musical fragments, SOCAN would have to determine how many creators should receive money and how much each should get.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo we start making really small micropayments to everyone on a work?\u201d Turnbull says. \u201cOr do we have to look at a higher scale of, OK, these were the top 10 works that influenced an output?\u201d<\/p>\n
THE COPYRIGHT FIGHT IN OTTAWA<\/p>\n
The industry is also watching legal battles abroad.<\/p>\n
A recent German ruling found Suno infringed copyright by using protected songs to train its AI system. Turnbull calls the decision \u201cvery promising,\u201d though it\u2019s expected to be appealed.<\/p>\n
But the music industry isn\u2019t just asking AI companies to pay up. It\u2019s also warning Ottawa not to change the rules in their favour.<\/p>\n
During a 2024 federal consultation, tech companies argued that training AI on copyrighted material does not infringe copyright. Google said existing law already permits it, and urged the government to adopt an exemption to make that explicit. Canadian AI firm Cohere similarly called for the law to clearly state the training process doesn\u2019t violate copyright.<\/p>\n
Music Publishers Canada and SOCAN are urging the government to rule out introducing a broad text-and-data-mining exception to copyright law.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf (AI companies) think they can get this, they\u2019re not going to enter into fair agreements based on the needs of songwriters and publishers,\u201d McGuffin says.<\/p>\n
Canada\u2019s long-awaited 50-page national AI strategy, released in June, made no mention of copyright, drawing criticism from creative industries.<\/p>\n
Last year, Australia\u2019s federal government firmly decided against changing its copyright law to allow text-and-data mining without permission. McGuffin says a similar stance in Canada could pave the way for \u201ccooperative licensing deals that have creators getting paid\u201d for the use of their music.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re asking the Canadian government to make it clear for everyone in the marketplace that there\u2019s not going to be any ambiguity,\u201d Turnbull agrees, \u201cand that AI companies will have to properly compensate creators for their works.\u201d<\/p>\n
Last month, Music Publishers Canada also intervened in a federal court case over an AI-altered image inspired by Vincent van Gogh\u2019s painting \u201cThe Starry Night,\u201d arguing that only human creators should qualify as authors under copyright law.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Canadian artists like Pemberton are keeping focus on what AI can\u2019t replicate: the messy, unpredictable process of human creativity.<\/p>\n
No matter how well AI can mimic the music, he argues, it can\u2019t feel the feelings that make it meaningful.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt doesn\u2019t have a broken heart,\u201d he says. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t have the sad experiences to draw from. It doesn\u2019t live.\u201d<\/p>\n
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 27, 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"flag wire: true flag sponsored: false article_type: pubinfo.section: cms.site.custom.site_domain : thestar.com sWebsitePrimaryPublication : publications\/toronto_star bHasMigratedAvatar : false firstAuthor.avatar…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":874350,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[62,76,303416,45,49,48,75,7607,341,44,66],"class_list":["post-874349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-ai","tag-arts","tag-arts-business-entertainment-media-music-science","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment","tag-media","tag-music","tag-news","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/874349","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=874349"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/874349\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/874350"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=874349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=874349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=874349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}