Regurgitated ‘American Pie’ adds sour taste to GenAI copyright claims

Don McClean has always had to share “American Pie.” Since its release in 1971, the hit song has re-emerged in covers by Madonna, parodies by Weird Al Yankovic, serenades by South Korean presidents, subplots in Marvel movies, and even CIA torture techniques. But these days, McClean’s leading imitators aren’t even human. You can interrogate the culprits for yourself. Just load OpenAI’s ChatGPT and prompt the text generator to “write the lyrics to a song about t