Celine Dion has warned fans against “fake” AI-generated songs circulating online.
In a statement posted on Instagram yesterday (March 7), representatives for the ‘It’s All Coming Back To Me Now’ singer wrote: “It has come to our attention that unsanctioned, AI-generated music purporting to contain Celine Dion’s musical performances, and name and likeness, is currently circulating online and across various Digital Service Providers.”
It continued: “Please be advised that these recordings are fake and not approved, and are not songs from her official discography.”
Though they didn’t name any particular songs, an AI-generated cover of Dion singing the gospel song ‘Heal Me Lord’ was recently uploaded to YouTube and has amassed over one million views.
Dion has joined a multitude of musicians who have been coming out against AI in the past year. In the UK in particular, artists have been protesting against the government’s proposed plans to alter the copyright law to allow AI developers full use of creators’ content on the internet if they are data or text mining to help develop their models.
The proposals would give artists or creators a “rights reservation” to opt out, but has been criticised by many who believe it would be impossible for an individual to notify thousands of different AI service providers, or to monitor what has happened to their work across the entire internet.
Recently, Queen’s Brian May spoke out about the government’s proposition and told the Daily Mail: “My fear is that it’s already too late – this theft has already been performed and is unstoppable, like so many incursions that the monstrously arrogant billionaire owners of Al and social media are making into our lives. The future is already forever changed.”
Paul McCartney has also criticised the proposed changes, saying if it goes ahead it will allow AI to rip off artists and result in a “loss of creativity”.
Similarly, Led Zeppelin‘s Jimmy Page has hit out against the proposals, saying: “When AI scrapes the vast tapestry of human creativity to generate content, it often does so without consent, attribution, or compensation. This is not innovation; it’s exploitation.”
Elsewhere, over 1,000 artists including Damon Albarn, Kate Bush and Annie Lennox released a silent album in protest of planned changes to copyright AI laws planned by the UK government.
The impact of rising AI usage in the music industry is already becoming prominent. Just two months ago, a new study shared the stark warning that people working in music are likely to lose a quarter of their income to Artificial Intelligence over the next four years.
This prediction comes as the annual market for generative AI is currently €3billion, and expected to rise to €64billion by 2028.
It has moved into 2025 too, with streaming platform Deezer stating that around 10,000 AI-generated tracks are submitted to the platform daily – making up around 10 per cent of all its music uploads.
Last summer, Nick Cave continued to be a vocal opponent to the rise of AI in music, saying that its usage within the industry is “unbelievably disturbing” and will have a “humiliating effect” on creatives
“Its intent is to completely sidestep the sort of inconvenience of the artistic struggle, going straight to the commodity, which reflects on us, what we are, as human beings, which is just things that consume stuff. We don’t make things anymore. We just consume stuff. It’s frightening,” he said.