Is it ok to pass off AI as your own work?

[Ljislink24]

Seems odd in these AI vs Us threads a lot comparisons to using some AI as a tool. The AI spoken about or what a lot of us are up in arms about is not backing tracks, sampled instruments ect. ect. It's about typing in a 3-12 word prompt on a computer and getting back a complete mastered song with printed lryics in under 2 minutes, not only that it will give 2 versions of the song to choose from & it's free.
I think anyone who uses this AI at it's full potential will not compare it as tool any longer.
https://suno.com/home

 

[omahaaudio]

So on a guitar forum is it ok to use AI created songs and say you “played” them?

No, and not just on a guitar forum.

 

[azureglo]

Well folks time to start winding this thread down before folk start posting provocative stuff and rage baiting: I don’t think anyone who got duped by “pamela” should feel bad, after he ( and I really think it’s a he) was the one playing fake out games and some took him at his word. I scanned a few other forums and he’s been quite busy there too, posting the same stuff albeit in different formats.

I’m still puzzled by what he hopes to achieve: TDPRI, Strat Talk etc are hardly huge demographics and none of the folk here are going to send him to the top of the streaming charts.

I wonder if he’ll re-surface either as this persona or another, his MO. seems to be wait till someone suspects him and then jump to another forum and he’s pretty much run out of those.

Still, time to get back to our busy lives, those pickups won’t replace themselves and there’s next week’s set to rehearse etc. Plus we now know how to perform a base level check to see if somebody is posting AI and pretending…

 

[Jared Purdy]

So I mistakenly suggested something posted here might have been AI ( and wasn’t ) but it got me thinking. We ( the K-pop house I work for) get a lot of demos from aspiring songwriters. wannabe stars etc and since Suno et al launched, the quality (& quantity) have gone through the roof. Everything is slick in execution, in perfect tune , perfectly quantised and Spotify ready mastered.

So we have a tool to check if we’re listening to AI or human talent and recently on Squiertalk a chap (or girl) posted a song that sounded like a commercial release. BTW said individual claims to have been banned here for using SoundCloud…That said the stuff he (or she) was posting a year ago was nowhere near as good so I ran “her “track through Submithub and voila:

Now its nowhere near 100% accurate but as a control I ran one of my song demos through it ( which uses an AI modified vocal, i.e. me singing but made to sound to like a girl) and it returned this as I’d expect.

So back to the AI poster, it can’t tell whether the singer is AI and the “band” is real or the other way but its definitely not human created and performed . Either way “Pamelas Pants” as she/he/they call themselves are definitely not what they claim to be…

So on a guitar forum is it ok to use AI created songs and say you “played” them? The recent Velvet Sundown furore and Spotify admitting to using “Ghost Artists” to fill out playlists has died down but is it OK on a guitar players forum to pass off AI created songs as your own work?

Now I’ll come clean I use AI very heavily: Synthesiser V and Vocoflex for my song demos, creating guides for IRL singers, even occasionally doing BVs for released tracks. But although its AI singing, the composition is my own i.e. every note and syllable has been created, by me,Syn V simply sings my words at the pitch and tempo I tell it to. E.g.

Recently one of the label execs pointed out my AI created guide vocals sounded a lot better that the actual performance by the singer on an upcoming release: War broke out in the studio and folk almost came to blows until we compromised and double tracked the IRL singer with my AI created vocal and mixed the two. The execs view was to use my AI vocal and then add the real singers “voice print” ( Vocoflex) which TBH sounded a lot better but not my call.

Then we have folk here who will use something like Audimee to create vocals for their original songs. Which I think is totally valid and in a way similar to, what we “pro” songwriters do with our AI singers. But not if Audimee came up with the vocal melody for your words, then surely it wrote that melody, not you?

The real dilemma is when the guitar, bass etc parts are played by AI or the whole song is created by AI and passed off as an original that the poster claims to have performed and composed: Is this something folks are ok with?

AI is the Milli Vinilli of 2025. So no, no, and no. If you want to make music, learn to play an instrument, something with stings, keys, skins or horns. I know how to work a stereo. What does that make me? An "instrumentalist"?

 

[Papanate]

It’s not even right to pass your own songs off as your own.

 

[Happy Enchilada]

Mrs. Enchilada is a former highschool English teacher.
She had a similar software tool to check on students forklifting text off the WWW.
Sadly, she caught a mess of 'em.

 

[getbent]

How about this scenario?

Completely on its own...an AI program composes, records and releases a song without prompting, it did it on its own. It's on YT, Tic-Toc, Spotify...and it gets played. Not a hit...but enough to start generating income that no human asked for.
Can the material copyrighted, after all it's generated income. If so to who? The composer, in this case a non-human? It's an entity, like a corporation that hold copyrights and trademarks.
The 'composer' and whoever owned or wrote the code? After all a single human's initial interaction with the AI could be the reason it has any musical ability at all. But the same could be said for The Beatles parents, should they be credited?

There is no answer to my questions because they're mostly stupid...but not quite dumb enough not have a slim possibility of happening.

It's currently a no win situation and it's not going to be solved anytime soon. Right now there really is no way to solve the existing issues w/ music, etc. and the real problems, long term problems have yet to be discovered. Like during the 90s with the rapid spread of the internet, some things done to control problems worked...other made it worse. Some things done helped advance the internet, some things accidentally slowed it down.
In the meantime, if you use it...admit it.

AI can't truly 'self prompt' (yet) so, for now, it is hypothetical.

 

[getbent]

I thought the thread title was a joke ? Click bait ? How can anyone even ask such a silly question. I did an AI song to see what the "buzz" was & it sounded good & had decent lyrics, I was actually in shock a song like that could be made in under 2 minutes with only a 5-8 word prompt. AI & song writing should even be used in the sentence. There's song writers & there's computers that manufacture music, there's no in between if you use AI have fun but don't fool yourself that your creating something.

I think you don't understand the breadth of what is possible with all the different tools available to create music. No offense, and definitely NOT limited just to this post, but I think a lot of people have an opinion not based on actual information, they are relying on things they hear or are told or scant experience.

The comparisons get a little dicey too... Electric instruments could be seen as cheating too... How about pedals? jump to linn drum? reverb chambers at the big studios? comping vocals and solos? tape reversal? ping ponging? Gosh, once we get to digital... delays, track stacking, smpte, midi, all the daws we have... and the intelligence within them....

How many of us have played 'virtual sessions' for people who sent you the tracks, you put the part on and send it back... they release their band cd.. it is theirs... to me...

I had a guy who told me what he wanted me to play on a part... (which tools) and I was like... 'ehhh, I'm just gonna do the best I can within the limit of the 150.00 cost. Which meant, a homebuilt tele direct in to my DAW and a preset that I dig. They loved it.. everyone was happy. Is that 'cheating'...

I'm all for credit, I will share (openly) which part I did and which part i had help on.... On a construction project remodeling an old cabin, I have felled trees and processed them into boards to mimic/match how the cabin was constructed... in MANY cases. But not all. I recently did some trim work and used store bought wood. So, there is store bought wood used in part of the cabin.... shrug.

this is like old car restoration thing, if you LS swap a 68 camaro.. is it still a camaro? If you buy all the parts from people to make a tele, did you build it? assemble it? do you have to start from a tree to really be a tele builder or can you buy some store bought parts?

I have my own thoughts, but I know they are arbitrary.

I love just playing my acoustic and making up songs... which as @Papanate so well said, it is kind of hard to even take credit for a song you wrote on your acoustic because surely somebody had parts of it before you did.

People will have to make up their own minds and I'm sure there will be court cases and law settled on it.

Most absolutist are absolute until they aren't... that is usually about 3 questions deep (or less) and the whole house of cards falls apart.

What is great is folks can create whatever morality they want and it can fit... if you want it to.

I want to learn A LOT more about the tools and use them for awhile until I form a hard opinion about what is my creation and what is stolen...

I just need to make sure I don't read the Nick Adams stories and then the Hunting Sketches...

 

[sadfield]

Seems odd in these AI vs Us threads a lot comparisons to using some AI as a tool. The AI spoken about or what a lot of us are up in arms about is not backing tracks, sampled instruments ect. ect. It's about typing in a 3-12 word prompt on a computer and getting back a complete mastered song with printed lryics in under 2 minutes, not only that it will give 2 versions of the song to choose from & it's free.
I think anyone who uses this AI at it's full potential will not compare it as tool any longer.
https://suno.com/home

Is that what the subject of the thread did though? The track analysis @azureglo post reports that it was highly unlikely AI (5% likelihood). I suspect one could take some pretty loosely performed and recorded base material, and use AI to clean it up, tempo and pitch correct it, then run it through tools tonally adjust it to sound like another piece of recording.
It's entirely possible they composed and performed every rhythmic and melodic part just not using the instruments they ended up as in the mix. Mozart without a quill and a stack of manuscript.

 

[rdjones]

How about this scenario?

Completely on its own...an AI program composes, records and releases a song without prompting, it did it on its own. It's on YT, Tic-Toc, Spotify...and it gets played. Not a hit...but enough to start generating income that no human asked for.
Can the material copyrighted, after all it's generated income. If so to who? The composer, in this case a non-human? It's an entity, like a corporation that hold copyrights and trademarks.
The 'composer' and whoever owned or wrote the code? After all a single human's initial interaction with the AI could be the reason it has any musical ability at all. But the same could be said for The Beatles parents, should they be credited?

There is no answer to my questions because they're mostly stupid...but not quite dumb enough not have a slim possibility of happening.

It's currently a no win situation and it's not going to be solved anytime soon. Right now there really is no way to solve the existing issues w/ music, etc. and the real problems, long term problems have yet to be discovered. Like during the 90s with the rapid spread of the internet, some things done to control problems worked...other made it worse. Some things done helped advance the internet, some things accidentally slowed it down.
In the meantime, if you use it...admit it.

Public Domain

 

[jrblue]

If by "OK" you mean "legal," then it appears as though it is being done everywhere, without so much as an identification of "ingredients" as is required on a box of cookies. The obvious intent to deceive seems to be OK; the use of materials created by others, without compensation or even credit, is thus far acceptable -- in this case, it seems, because it's just to darned hard to figure out how payment would work in such a complex scam -- I mean, process. Speaking only for myself, I am 100% not OK with the way AI is being used in the arts, for the reasons mentioned above as well as the broader one -- that it is just producing, which is not creative even in the most debased popular excuse for creativity. Am I being creative when I open a jar of Hershey's Hot Fudge to enhance my bowl of Breyer's Vanilla ice cream? That people find that AI processing of vocals produces a "better" result than what a human being sings is, to me, just sad. I guess that's what happens when we fall in love with machines instead of each other. Imagine "improving" Ginger Baker's drumming by sync-ing it to an atomic clock, or "cleaning up" an Ella Fitzgerald vocal by eliminating all the microtonal flats and sharps that surround the pitch. Perhaps a coming wave of users will find means of working with AI that adds interest and creative value rather than just spit-polishing turds.

 

[getbent]

Public Domain

having the first answer won't necessarily make it the best answer....

so, some part of the conversation will be about sentience (I'd bet) and about ownership of the tools... the software etc....

Every couple of years there will be a story on sunday morning (CBS) or some show about an animal that is painting and selling the work for bajillions (people only actually care about the economics of this, not the thing so much, I figure) and a person(s) get the money.

I'm excited about learning the new tools because they may help me create music for me. the stuff I make, I make for me and a few friends and family, so, economics are not a factor.

Oh the baseball game is coming on, I want to stand for our national anthem (it was correctly accredited and not stolen, right?)

 

[getbent]

If by "OK" you mean "legal," then it appears as though it is being done everywhere, without so much as an identification of "ingredients" as is required on a box of cookies. The obvious intent to deceive seems to be OK; the use of materials created by others, without compensation or even credit, is thus far acceptable -- in this case, it seems, because it's just to darned hard to figure out how payment would work in such a complex scam -- I mean, process. Speaking only for myself, I am 100% not OK with the way AI is being used in the arts, for the reasons mentioned above as well as the broader one -- that it is just producing, which is not creative even in the most debased popular excuse for creativity. Am I being creative when I open a jar of Hershey's Hot Fudge to enhance my bowl of Breyer's Vanilla ice cream? That people find that AI processing of vocals produces a "better" result than what a human being sings is, to me, just sad. I guess that's what happens when we fall in love with machines instead of each other. Imagine "improving" Ginger Baker's drumming by sync-ing it to an atomic clock, or "cleaning up" an Ella Fitzgerald vocal by eliminating all the microtonal flats and sharps that surround the pitch. Perhaps a coming wave of users will find means of working with AI that adds interest and creative value rather than just spit-polishing turds.

one of my brothers makes beans for every family thing... Uncle K's special beans are a 'thing' He starts with cans of baked beans... then he 'doctors' them.

we just laugh. He was over once and saw a bowl of beans soaking and he asked what it was... I told him and he said, 'you know I really love making beans'

But... we bought a bag a dried beans, so, you know....

 

[RobertBruceScott]

When AI manages to play my guitar, I will freak.

 

[martiro7000]

So I mistakenly suggested something posted here might have been AI ( and wasn’t ) but it got me thinking. We ( the K-pop house I work for) get a lot of demos from aspiring songwriters. wannabe stars etc and since Suno et al launched, the quality (& quantity) have gone through the roof. Everything is slick in execution, in perfect tune , perfectly quantised and Spotify ready mastered.

So we have a tool to check if we’re listening to AI or human talent and recently on Squiertalk a chap (or girl) posted a song that sounded like a commercial release. BTW said individual claims to have been banned here for using SoundCloud…That said the stuff he (or she) was posting a year ago was nowhere near as good so I ran “her “track through Submithub and voila:

Now its nowhere near 100% accurate but as a control I ran one of my song demos through it ( which uses an AI modified vocal, i.e. me singing but made to sound to like a girl) and it returned this as I’d expect.

So back to the AI poster, it can’t tell whether the singer is AI and the “band” is real or the other way but its definitely not human created and performed . Either way “Pamelas Pants” as she/he/they call themselves are definitely not what they claim to be…

So on a guitar forum is it ok to use AI created songs and say you “played” them? The recent Velvet Sundown furore and Spotify admitting to using “Ghost Artists” to fill out playlists has died down but is it OK on a guitar players forum to pass off AI created songs as your own work?

Now I’ll come clean I use AI very heavily: Synthesiser V and Vocoflex for my song demos, creating guides for IRL singers, even occasionally doing BVs for released tracks. But although its AI singing, the composition is my own i.e. every note and syllable has been created, by me,Syn V simply sings my words at the pitch and tempo I tell it to. E.g.

Recently one of the label execs pointed out my AI created guide vocals sounded a lot better that the actual performance by the singer on an upcoming release: War broke out in the studio and folk almost came to blows until we compromised and double tracked the IRL singer with my AI created vocal and mixed the two. The execs view was to use my AI vocal and then add the real singers “voice print” ( Vocoflex) which TBH sounded a lot better but not my call.

Then we have folk here who will use something like Audimee to create vocals for their original songs. Which I think is totally valid and in a way similar to, what we “pro” songwriters do with our AI singers. But not if Audimee came up with the vocal melody for your words, then surely it wrote that melody, not you?

The real dilemma is when the guitar, bass etc parts are played by AI or the whole song is created by AI and passed off as an original that the poster claims to have performed and composed: Is this something folks are ok with?

So, is it okay in 2025 to pass off AI as your own composition? Well, what’s an AI going to do? Sue you for plagiarism? The bigger worry is that this composition will be provided to other users as well, spawning duplicates which may then compete for ownership rights.

After all, what is music? I’ve heard much which is little more than ambience, or perhaps recorded life sounds. Look up Frank Zappa playing a bicycle -

Ethically, I don’t believe we’ve seen the end of what artists will assemble some day into “music.”

 

[Mindthebull]

I guess I don’t understand what someone hopes to achieve by passing off AI as one’s one work on a guitar forum. Fame ? Adulation of the masses? The best thing about this place is nobody is flogging their own wares. It’s about learning and connecting with others. How can anyone expect to do that by passing off AI as their own work? Maybe I don’t understand the question. You won’t learn a thing by fooling people. Nobody here gives a ***t about what you want to pass off as your own work…. But it’s just lame.

 

[OldGitPicker]

Absolutely, positively NO!!!!

 

[delmay96 guitar]

This is the first time I have ever heard this version of 'Smoke on the Water'. It's cool. About half-way through, it felt like I was trippin'.

 

[msalama]

not based on actual information

It's not utilizing tools if the "actual information" here is you using AI for creating everything and then appropriating and publishing the result under your own name, but rather passing off something you can't (or won't) do yourself as your own work. And if that's not a total antithesis of "credit where credit's due", what is?

 

[sadfield]

It seems like most people are working on the premise that using AI is just typing words into a computer and getting a complete song out of the other end. It clearly is more nuanced than that. Rather than what has most likely actually happened, the user has fed the isolated elements of a track into AI for heavy signal processing. Little different to clicking notes into a DAW and getting a full vst orchestra rendition out the other end. All the OP has proven, is that person used some form of AI manipulation. With a higher probability of human creation than pure AI.

Is it passing AI off as your own work, if you've passed your own work through AI?