- YouTube wants to launch a AI feature to let users make music using their favorite singers’ voices.
- It’s been delayed by ongoing talks with record companies about the rights needed to train AI software.
- The arrival of AI-generated music has created significant legal issues for the music industry.
YouTube wants to launch an AI feature allowing users to create songs using the voices of famous musicians, but has not yet obtained the necessary rights, Bloomberg reported.
The video streaming platform had hoped to launch the tool last month, along with a suite of new AI-powered functions it said would “push the bounds of creative expression.”
The new tools are aimed at streamlining the creative process for YouTube users. One will let creators automatically add an AI-generated video or image to their background.
The AI music function could potentially give YouTube users the ability to recreate any song with their favorite musician’s voice, or create entirely new music replicating a singer.
However, the feature has been delayed by ongoing discussions with record companies, according to unnamed sources quoted by Bloomberg.
YouTube needs the rights to singers’ voices to train its AI to mimic them, meaning significant legal challenges over ownership and distribution of revenues.
The Alphabet-owned site declined to comment to Bloomberg and didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from Insider.
Resolving these issues could help create a framework that shapes the relationship of AI and the music industry.
Alexander Ross, a music and copyright lawyer, previously told Insider that makers of AI covers could be breaking the law.
“If you’re creating a recording with the intention of misleading people into thinking it’s the real thing — that it is Rihanna, for example, then that’s called a passing-off claim, you’re passing-off that as the original,” he said.
Major artists themselves have also weighed into the discussion, particularly as AI-generated cover versions using their voices have swept the internet.
An AI-generated song titled “Heart on My Sleeve” went viral earlier this year due to its exact mimicking of Drake and The Weeknd’s vocal styles.
Drake had called AI “the final straw” just a week before.
Th track was taken down from streaming platforms such as Spotify in that case, but signalling the inevitability of this technology, CEO Daniel Ek recently announced that AI-generated music won’t be banned on his platform.
Meanwhile, three big music publishers filed a lawsuit Wednesday against AI platform Anthropic for using copyrighted lyrics to train its software.
Though many are concerned about how to settle copyright issues, some creators have chosen to embrace AI-assisted music production methods rather than oppose them.
Grimes, the electronic musician and former partner of Elon Musk, has created an entire album using AI and said she will split royalties with anyone who’s approved to release a song using an AI imitation of her voice.
She has created an open-source platform called Elf.Tech to produce AI vocals that sound like her voice.
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