As more and more unlicensed AI-soundalike songs keep showing up on YouTube and other sites, Universal Music Group (UMG) and Warner Music Group (WMG) are apparently in talks with Google to use their artists’ voices in a tool for making music.
A report from the Financial Times mentioned anonymous sources who knew about the situation and said that the rumored talks between the well-known major labels and the company that owns YouTube were true. But the people involved haven’t said anything about it in public, and it’s not clear when (or if) they’ll sign a deal about it.
In the same way, Sony Music Entertainment has yet to say what it will do about unapproved AI songs, especially those on YouTube. Fans are still sharing songs that sound like new projects or covers of songs by The Weeknd, Drake, Frank Sinatra, Lana Del Rey, Billie Eilish, The Beatles, and a lot of other artists.
RELATED: Universal Music Group Urges Congress To Enact Stricter Artificial Intelligence Protections
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Universal Music has, according to the source, started to think about licensing its artists’ voices and melodies to a music-creation system. This is after making sure that these works wouldn’t make waves on streaming services like Spotify (AI music that doesn’t sound like these works is a different story), flagging more than a few AI-music YouTube videos for infringement, and calling for stricter AI regulations in the U.S.
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According to the Financial Times, talks “are at an early stage,” and the tool being talked about isn’t going to be released soon. Universal Music joined with the relaxation app Endel in May to make music using “ethical AI.” The company’s main goal is, of course, to get paid for the use of its protected assets.
Given that some artists have been on record criticizing AI and that the technology has the potential to kill careers, it makes sense that acts would have the choice to join the rumored music-AI program from Google, which has already made MusicLM. Also, WMG, which has “big name” AI releases planned for later this quarter, is believed to be in talks with Google about licensing the same rumored tool.
Bigger picture, it goes without saying that this AI service raises many questions with far-reaching effects, such as the effects on business of making many songs sound alike and much more. Even before artificial intelligence, which seems likely to change quickly in the future, it was hard for many acts to get friends and listeners on streaming services that were already full.
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Now, on top of the popularity of AI projects that sound like other AI projects and AI projects that seem to be original, licensed AI works are making a commercial splash. These licensed AI works are similar to those that would supposedly debut under the rumored UMG- and WMG-Google partnerships. Grimes AI, which is distributed by TuneCore and has 144,000 monthly listeners on Spotify, seems to be putting out a steady stream of songs.
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