The Weeknd

Universal Music Group is in the early stages of talks with Google about licensing artists’ voices for songs created by artificial intelligence, according to The Financial Times. Warner Music Group has also discussed this possibility, The Financial Times reported.

Advances in artificial-intelligence-driven technology have made it relatively easy for a producer sitting at home to create a song involving a convincing facsimile of a superstar’s voice — without that artist’s permission. Hip-hop super-fans have been using the technology to flesh out unfinished leaks of songs from their favorite rappers. 

One track in particular grabbed the industry’s attention in March: “Heart On My Sleeve,” which masqueraded as a new collaboration between Drake and the Weeknd. At the time, a Universal Music spokesperson issued a statement saying that “stakeholders in the music ecosystem” have to choose “which side of history… to be on: the side of artists, fans and human creative expression, or on the side of deep fakes, fraud and denying artists their due compensation.” 

“In our conversations with the labels, we heard that the artists are really pissed about this stuff,” Geraldo Ramos, co-founder and CEO of the music technology company Moises, told Billboard recently. (Moises has developed its own AI-driven voice-cloning technology, along with the technology to detect whether a song clones someone else’s voice.) “How do you protect that artist if you’re a label?” added Matt Henninger, Moises’ vp of sales and business development.

The answer is probably licensing: Develop a system in which artists who are fine with having their voices cloned clear those rights — in exchange for some sort of compensation — while those acts who are uncomfortable with being replicated by technology can opt out. Just as there is a legal framework in place that allows producers to sample 1970s soul, for example, by clearing both the master and publishing rights, in theory there could be some sort of framework through which producers obtain permission to clone a superstar’s voice.

AI-driven technology could “enable fans to pay their heroes the ultimate compliment through a new level of user-driven content,” Warner CEO Robert Kyncl told financial analysts this week. (“There are some [artists] that may not like it,” he continued, “and that’s totally fine.”)

On the same investor call, Kyncl also singled out “one of the first official and professionally AI-generated songs featuring a deceased artist, which came through our ADA Latin division:” A new Pedro Capmany track featuring AI-generated vocals from his father Jose, who died in 2001. “After analyzing hundreds of hours of interviews, acappellas, recorded songs, and live performances from Jose’s career, every nuance and pattern of his voice was modeled using AI and machine learning,” Kyncl explained. 

After the music industry’s initial wave of alarm about AI, the conversation has shifted, according to Henninger. With widely accessible voice-cloning technology available, labels can’t really stop civilians from making fake songs accurately mimicking their artists’ vocals. But maybe there’s a way they can make money from all the replicants.

Henninger is starting to hearing different questions around the music industry. “How can [AI] be additive?” he asks. “How can it help revenue? How can it build someone’s brand?”

Reps for Universal and Warner did not respond to requests for comment.