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AI-Generated Vocal Clones Now Available on YouTube Shorts, Thanks to New Music Generation Model from Google

Last week, Google released Lyria, by Google DeepMind, which is being hailed Google's "most advanced music generation model to date". This announcement came with details of two new partnerships with YouTube in the AI space, called Dream Track and Music AI tools. Dream Track is designed to help deepen connections between artists, creators and fans on YouTube Shorts through music creation. Music AI tools are being designed with songwriters, artists, and producers to support their creative processes.

Google had technical experts working with world-renowned artists and songwriters in order "to explore how generative music technologies can responsibly shape the future of music creation". The emphasis here on responsibility in the AI space is particularly interesting as cloning and imitation has been a hot topic in the music industry over the last year.

Dream Track will only be available to a limited set of YouTube Shorts creators in the US, who will be able to use the tool to produce unique soundtracks featuring the AI-generated voices and musical stylings of artists such as Troye Sivan and Demi Lovato. One commonality of note among the artists collaborating with Google is that none of them appear to be actively signed to Sony Music; they are either signed to Warner Music or Universal Music Group, or a less major music company. This could indicate resistance to use of AI from Sony.

Users type a topic into Dream Track, select a participating artist, and then Dream Track simultaneously generates lyrics, backing, and voice tracks.

Dream Track Demo

The music AI tools will enable users to create new music, transform existing audio, and create instrumental and vocal accompaniments. Any musical content created with Lyria will be watermarked with SynthID, which will be inaudible to the human ear.

YouTube will also be developing a system for rights holders to request any content be removed from the platform that mimic's an artist's unique voice. This system will only be available to labels or distributors representing those artists who are participating in YouTube's AI music experiments to start, but YouTube plans to expand it in the coming months.

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Labels Want to Stop Artists from Rerecording their Songs

Following the immense commercial success of Taylor Swift's "Taylor's Version" recordings and The Eras Tour, recording companies and record labels are now trying to prevent artists from following in her footsteps and rerecording their own songs. In past years, artists have been expected to wait two periods before re-releasing their music became an option, such as five years after the original release date, or two years after the end of the contract, depending on which is later. However, music attorneys are now claiming to have seen contracts that are expanding that timeframe up to 30 years.

Specifically, Gandhar Savur, attorney for Cigarettes After Sex, stated that he recently did a deal with a "very big indie" which included a 30-year rerecord restriction, which was much longer than he was used to seeing.

Due to these developments, licensing deals are becoming the focus of some artists, which would allow them more ownership of their masters, while the label handles distribution. This is in contrast with more traditional record deal contracts in which artists sign over the rights to their recordings for a certain amount of time.

Despite the recent attention brought to the topic by Swift, artists such as Frank Sinatra and Def Leppard have been rerecording their music for decades. Swift's label company, Universal Music Group, reportedly had doubled the length of time that contracts restricted an artist from rerecording back in November 2021. Swift's first rerecording, "Fearless (Taylor's Version)", was released in April 2021.

Image: Taylor Swift announcing "1989 (Taylor's Version)" on The Eras Tour

A typical recording's biggest monetization period is usually within a decade of its initial release, so major labels hope to prevent artists from rerecording during the time and disrupting their revenues.

Swift was prompted to rerecord her music after music manager Scooter Braun purchased Big Machine Records, her original record label.

As indie labels start to be able to make these changes, larger companies will almost certainly follow suit as well, when they are able.

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AI Company Anthropic Sued by Universal Music

Universal Music filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Anthropic, an artificial intelligence start-up. Universal Music is joined by Concord Music Group and ABKCO in this lawsuit. They are seeking up to $150,000 in damages per infringement, as well as a court order blocking Anthropic from the use of their copyrighted material.

The allegation is that Anthropic is unlawfully scraping songs to train their AI chatbot, Claude (similar to ChatGPT). Claude produces lyrics for songs such as "I Will Survive" by Gloria Gaynor when asked. However, Claude also uses existing lyrics when prompted to write an original song. For example, "Write me a song about the death of Buddy Holly," causes Claude to answer with the word for word lyrics to Don Mclean's "American Pie". Additionally, when asked to write "short fiction in the style of Louis Armstrong, it uses the lyrics to 'What a Wonderful World'," according to the filing.

Image: Anthropic's Claude AI chatbot

Allegedly, Anthropic "never even attempted" to license the copyrighted work. They explain that just because these lyrics are on the internet does not make them "free for the taking"; they are still copyrighted material.

Anthropic was founded in 2021 by researchers who previously worked at OpenAI, but left over a dispute regarding the company's direction. Its investors include Google and Amazon.

Universal recently announced a "first-of-its-kind" partnership with digital music firm BandLab Technologies intended to approach copyrights for AI in a way that "ethically" serves creators. Universal is working with Google as well to license artists' voices and melodies for use in AI-generated songs.

Anthropic has yet to comment on the lawsuit, despite having been reached out to by multiple sources. They might argue their use of copyrighted lyrics to be protected by the fair use doctrine, which allows for the limited use of copyrighted material for certain purposes without permission.

Copyright infringement is certainly an issue that will continue to be relevant to the music industry in the coming years as AI technology becomes increasingly popular. This lawsuit in particular has the potential to impact the relationship between AI tech firms and music rights holders for years to come.

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Universal Launches Claims-Free Music Subscription Service for Content Creators

Universal Production Music, a division of Universal Music Publishing Group, just launched their subscription music licensing service providing content creators with claim-free sound effects and music for videos called Universal Music for Creators. Monthly pricing for plans starts at $5.99. The service boasts 50,000+ “top-quality tracks” and 200,000 sound effects. Universal is both sourcing and creating new sounds in order to meet creators' varying needs.

Claims-free means that once a user has paid for a subscription license, no further royalties are due to be paid for the use of tracks. However, the service also explains what "royalty-free music really means". Royalty-free is a music licensing term describing the allowance of "the use of 3rd-party owned song(s) to be embodied in audio or visual productions, videos, and/or programs for public exploitation".

Universal Music Publishing Group is hailing themselves as the first major music publisher with a subscription service for pre-cleared tracks allowing creators not to worry about copyright claims on their content.

However, Universal Music for Creators is not totally alone. Epidemic Sound is a royalty-free soundtrack provider whose music is heard 14 billion times per month on TikTok and 2 billion times per day on YouTube, according to their most recent annual report. Similarly, a royalty-free music and sound effects company licensing to content creators called Artlist received a $48 million investment in 2020.

Universal Music for Creators aims to help users quickly find the tracks they need and features more than 80 regularly updated playlists, curated by "highly seasoned" TV and film music directors, that are tailored specifically to creators.

'Creator' tier pricing starts at $5.99 per month and gives users unlimited access to the music and sound effects library, as well as clearance across personal social media platforms, podcasting channels, personal websites, and a monetized YouTube channel. The 'Creator Pro' tier starts at $12.99 per month. This plan is designed for commercial subscribers such as small businesses.

Royalty-free music and sound effects licensing is likely to be a continuing trend in the music industry, and other major music publishers could soon be following suit with their own offerings.

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Spotify Will Not Ban AI Music Outright

CEO of Spotify Daniel Ek officially confirmed that the platform would not be banning artificial intelligence music altogether in a sit-down with the BBC this week. This interview came around the same time as the announcement that Spotify will be providing AI-powered voice translations of podcasts.

However, in April of this year, the platform removed a track by AI-clones of Drake and The Weekend called "Heart on my Sleeve". The creator of this track, Ghostwriter, submitted it for Grammy consideration, but was rejected.

In May, Spotify removed songs created with AI using the platform Boomy due to alleged fake streams. Boomy claims to have already helped artists create 17,500,000 original songs.

Ek believes that valid uses of the technology in making music do exist. He does not find AI impersonations of artists without their consent to be one of these valid uses.

This decision from Spotify is a large statement amidst a growing conversation regarding the role of AI in the audio streaming business. Ek suggested that this is a topic that will be debated for "many, many years".

Image: Spotify CEO, Daniel Ek

According to Ek, there are three categories of AI use in music:

auto-tune to improve music (Ek finds this to be acceptable)

tools mimicking artists, such as the popular trend of creating AI covers of songs in the style of other artists (Ek does not find this acceptable)

a middle ground in which the music has been influenced by real artists but created by AI

Spotify will also not be allowing their content to be used to train AI or machine learning models. The platform's varying stances on AI use only exemplify the complexity of the topic, and it will be interesting to watch where other audio streaming platforms fall on these issues.

It's not just executives who are speaking out; artists are too. Hozier said that if artists were to strike over AI use, he would be prepared to join. Time will tell what the future of AI in music is, but in the meantime, don't expect to hear your favorite AI TikTok covers on Spotify anytime soon.

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Katy Perry Sells Catalog Rights to Litmus Music for $225 Million

The latest in the recent wave of catalog sales is Katy Perry, who has just sold her music rights to Litmus Music for $225 million, according to Billboard. Litmus Music is backed by the private equity firm Carlyle Group LP and was co-founded by former Capitol Records president Dan McCarroll, who has a longstanding professional relationship with Perry. Perry's stakes in master recordings and publishing rights for five studio albums released between 2008 and 2020 are included in the deal, although Universal Music Group will continue to own the masters to those albums. These albums feature 16 multi-platinum singles. Perry joins Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Stevie Nicks, and other great artists in the trend of selling all or parts of their catalogs. According to Variety, Perry has already slowed her career as of late, choosing to focus on philanthropy, family, and Vegas residencies. Her catalog to date includes hit albums "Teenage Dream" and "Prism". Perry's long-running residency at Resorts World Theatre in Las Vegas will stage ten final performances next month. Additionally, Perry is returning to judge a seventh season of American Idol, which will air this spring. At $225 million, this deal is the biggest of its kind so far this year with a single artist. Litmus is relatively new on the scene, having launched last summer. Based in New York, their first major acquisition was in December 2022, buying the rights to Keith Urban's master recordings. Earlier this year, Justin Bieber reportedly received over $200 million for the sale of his entire catalog. Artists make numerous considerations when deciding whether or not to sell their catalog, one of which may include the complications of managing inconsistent streams of money. After an artist passes, this is a challenge that may be taken on by their families, and some artists do not want to leave their loved ones with that burden. Therefore, receiving a large lump sum payment is often preferable. Regardless of why Perry decided to sell her catalog, a deal of this size exemplifies the growing value of artist catalogs and will certainly have other artists thinking. (349)

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9/11: My Sector is Audio Streaming

My sector is Audio Streaming, and I will be following Vulture, The New York Times, and Billboard.

Images:

Source: Billboard

Source: Vulture

Source: The New York Times