For fans of the reclusive R&B artist Frank Ocean, the short audio clips posted to group chat service Discord in early April were tantalizing. They purported to be leaked studio tracks from Ocean, who hasn’t released a full studio album since 2016 but has teased a forthcoming new project.
Ocean-obsessed music collectors offered to buy the tracks for thousands of dollars to get them before everyone else. There was only one problem: The tracks were fakes, created with a new kind of artificial intelligence that is sending shock waves through the music industry and raising thorny questions about ethics, copyright, and how artists can protect their personal brand.
