\u201cThis is a very … impressive vocal performance if it was delivered by a human but if it\u2019s not, that brings in really worrying questions around what we value any more in terms of human expression,\u201d Whiting said.<\/p>\n
Breakthrough hits<\/p>\n
\u201cI use AI as a tool,\u201d Fawaz said on Instagram under a post criticising his work. \u201cWhat I care about [is] providing my listeners with good music.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fawaz began releasing music in the 2010s. But it wasn\u2019t until he pivoted to covers with vocals this year that he gained commercial success, first with Like a Prayer in April and months later with his debut 18-track album, Dance Like Nobody\u2019s Watching \u2013 filled with heady, club-friendly reimaginings of hits including Oasis\u2019s Wonderwall and Cyndi Lauper\u2019s Girls Wanna Have Fun.<\/p>\n
Since its release, Fawaz\u2019s version of Like a Prayer has had 35m streams on Spotify and topped the iTunes Electronic chart worldwide. His album climbed to No 18 on the Aria Australian artist albums chart.<\/p>\n
On 1 July, a new commercial radio code of practice came into effect requiring programs to be transparent about using AI-generated voices on air. But it doesn\u2019t apply to music.<\/p>\n
The success of Like a Prayer comes as big tech companies are asking for Australian copyright laws to be watered down, to allow them to scrape Australian output to improve their AI models, prompting alarm<\/a> from musicians.<\/p>\n The large commercial radio networks ARN, Nova Entertainment and Southern Cross Austereo did not respond to requests for comment or provide their policies on AI use.<\/p>\n Late last month a producer and DJ called Needs No Sleep took to Instagram to describe AI-generated content as the \u201cbiggest issue in music right now\u201d. He said he was speaking up because music produced by AI receives royalties each time it is streamed or played on the radio. Plus the work of artists, including Needs No Sleep, is used to train AI models<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cIf this is the future of music production \u2026 then we really are cooked,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Neither Fawaz nor his management company, Hallwood, responded to questions from Guardian Australia. But he hit back at Needs No Sleep on Instagram, claiming that he used AI \u201cas a tool\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not that deep,\u201d he wrote. \u201c[I\u2019ve] been releasing music way before AI was invented. What I care about [is] providing my listeners with good music. Maybe you should do the same.\u201d<\/p>\n Needs No Sleep told Guardian Australia he became aware of Fawaz\u2019s music when it landed in his inbox from a DJ promoter service.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a>Free newsletter | Weekdays<\/p>\n Sign up to Afternoon Update<\/p>\n Our Australian afternoon update breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what\u2019s happening and why it matters<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve been doing it for 15 years and you can tell the way that AI music is produced \u2013 it has distinguishable features,\u201d he said, pointing to \u201csloppy drums\u201d, vocals with \u201cartefacts\u201d and a low-quality streaming file.<\/p>\n \u201cThose royalties that are collected are diverted away from other artists making real music. Artists count on these royalties, and they\u2019re now going to compete with AI music for a smaller and smaller slice of the pie.\u201d<\/p>\n A spokesperson for the Australasian Performing Right Association and Australasian Mechanical Copyright Owners Society, who provide royalties to musicians, told the Guardian that Fawaz has been a member of both bodies since 2021, and how Like a Prayer was recorded wouldn\u2019t impact the payment of royalties \u201cto the original human owners\u201d of the copyright.<\/p>\n \u201cThe song Like a Prayer is a remix\/cover of a musical work written by Madonna L Ciccone and Patrick R Leonard,\u201d they said. \u201cAs the original human rights holders of that musical work, they will be entitled to be paid all performance royalties in the usual manner.\u201d<\/p>\n If Fawaz is using prompts to make his music, he\u2019s not the first to do so successfully since AI music tools went mainstream. Last year three AI songs reached the highest spots on Spotify and Billboard charts<\/a> \u2013 and some major labels are even striking deals<\/a> with AI music companies.<\/p>\n A spokesperson for the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance said this was a \u201cgrowing trend\u201d.<\/p>\n The MEAA is advocating for equitable remuneration (ER) to be introduced into Australian copyright law so musicians and creatives are compensated when their work is used by AI companies, and for mandatory watermarking of AI-generated content.<\/p>\n \u201cMassive datasets of music, films, journalism, books and voices are being scraped to train commercial AI systems,\u201d the spokesperson said. \u201cThis is driving job losses, undercutting incomes, and hollowing out Australia\u2019s creative and media industries.\u201d<\/p>\n Whiting said the past decade of streaming culture and \u201cTikTok-ification\u201d of music had \u201cprimed\u201d listeners for AI-produced sounds.<\/p>\n \u201cThe reason why AI music is not being more heavily interrogated is because streaming has conditioned us all not to engage with music in a critical, proactive way,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd commercial radio in Australia has decided to heavily promote this track without any scrutiny of where it\u2019s come from, who\u2019s involved, or where those vocals were generated.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An Australian producer has gone from little-known artist to viral sensation in a matter of months, with his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":538862,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[345,343,344,85,46,125],"class_list":["post-538861","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538861","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=538861"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538861\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/538862"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=538861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=538861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=538861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1783669749_334_500.jpg\")
<\/p>\n