Eminem AI “Cat Rap” creator Grandayy has been smacked with a copyright strike against his popular YouTube video which has now been taken down.
Taking to Twitter on Sunday (April 2), the Maltese YouTuber posted a letter from the video streaming platform confirming the copyright strike filed by Universal Music Publishing Group (UMPG), which signed Eminem to a worldwide, exclusive administration agreement back in 2007.
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“Universal Music Group just decided to copyright strike my AI Eminem Cat Rap video,” he tweeted alongside a screenshot of the strike message. “Usually they just claim and monetize videos like this but they really wanted AI Eminem to be taken down for some reason.”
The copyright strike against Grandayy’s channel may also subject him to account termination in the future. “To prevent that from happening, please don’t upload videos containing copyrighted content that you aren’t allowed to use,” YouTube relayed to him in its message.
Universal Music Group just decided to copyright strike my AI Eminem Cat Rap video. Usually they just claim and monetize videos like this but they really wanted AI Eminem to be taken down for some reason. pic.twitter.com/2ky4AYOf8U
— Dr Grandayy (@grandayy) April 2, 2023
The AI Slim Shady’s “Cat Rap” video has generated a lot of commentary since its debut — so much so that it was even featured on a February episode of the popular HBO talk show, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver.
Oliver, who included the video in his larger segment about artificial intelligence, explained that the video was created by giving ChatGPT the prompt: “write an Eminem song about cats.” Oliver called the resultant video “stellar.”
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“Cat Rap” also has a lot of fans on Twitter, with many becoming near-instant fans of the song since hearing it on Oliver’s show. “Okay, the AI Eminem cat song from last week tonight is kind of a banger?” wrote one fan.
Another added: “It’s beautiful: ChatGPT was asked to write Eminem-style lyrics about how he loves cats.”
The Eminem “Cat Rap” controversy is just the latest AI hubbub in Hip Hop. While some AI treatments — like the AI recreation of Will Smith’s infamous Oscars slap of Chris Rock — have been garnering a more positive response, other artificially-created treatments have been facing some pushback.
On March 31, an AI-generated JAY-Z verse that has gone viral sparked concern from Young Guru, 9th Wonder and DJ Clark Kent, with Guru calling for the government to intervene.
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Hov’s esteemed engineer shared the digitally-generated vocals on his Instagram page on Friday (March 31), which sound almost indistinguishable to the Roc Nation mogul. That was enough for Guru to sound the alarm bells for where AI is heading.
“I’ve been trying to tell everyone that this is where we are now with AI. For some reason this one got everyone’s attention. So what do we do. On one hand I’m well aware that you can’t stop technology. Once the genie is out of the box you can put him back in,” Guru wrote on his Instagram page.
