🔗 Share this article Pop Vocalist the Artist's Record Label Takes Firm Position Against Popular 'AI Clone' Song Smith's vocals were allegedly replicated in the creation of the viral song, 'I Run'. The music company representing award-winning singer Jorja Smith has stated its intention to claim a portion of royalties from a track it claims was produced using an artificial intelligence "clone" of the performer's unique vocal style. The song, titled 'I Run' by UK dance act Haven, gained massive popularity on TikTok last October, partly due to its polished soul vocals by an unnamed woman singer. Despite its success and potential chart position in the UK and US, the song was subsequently banned by leading streaming platforms after music organizations sent copyright requests, stating it violated copyright by impersonating another musician. Even though 'I Run' has now been re-released with different singing, Smith's label, FAMM, insists it is convinced the initial version was made with AI trained on her body of work and is now pursuing financial redress. A Broader Issue at Stake "This is not only about one artist. It's bigger than one artist or one song," the label wrote in a recent announcement. FAMM also stated its belief that "both versions of the track violate the artist's rights and unjustly take advantage of the creative output of all the writers with whom she collaborates." Famous for hits like 'Be Honest' and 'Little Things', Smith was crowned British Female Solo Artist at the prestigious Brit Awards in 2019. Suggesting that her fans were potentially misled by Haven's original release, the label added: "We must not permit this to be the standard practice." Producers Admit Using AI Tools One producer confirmed the use of AI in a public post. The team behind the song have publicly confirmed utilizing AI in its production process. Producer Harrison Walker explained that the initial vocals were actually his own but were extensively altered using music-generation software Suno, sometimes referred to as the "ChatGPT for music". Meanwhile, the other member, Waypoint, identified as Jacob Donaghue, stated on social media that AI was used to "give our starting vocal a female quality". Donaghue and Walker maintain that they composed and created the music themselves and have even provided files of their source computer files. "It shouldn't be mystery that I used AI-assisted vocal processing to convert solely my voice for 'I Run'," Walker said. "As a creator and maker, I like using new tools, techniques and remaining on the cutting edge of what's happening," he continued. "To set the facts straight, the people behind HAVEN are actual and human, and all we want to do is make great music for other humans." Legal Gray Areas and Broader Impact Jorja Smith has won two Brit Awards, among them the best female artist in 2019. While their original version of 'I Run' was blocked from official charts, the replacement recording did break into the UK Top 40 last week. FAMM has positioned the incident as a critical test case for the music industry's changing interaction with AI. The label stated it had "a duty to speak up" and "encourage public discourse", because AI is advancing at an "alarming rate and substantially outpacing legal oversight". "AI-generated content should be transparently identified as such so that the audience may decide whether they consume it or not," the statement added. Artists as 'Collateral Victims' Smith endorsed her label's position on her personal social media page. The post cautioned that musicians and songwriters were becoming "unintended casualties in the competition by policymakers and tech firms towards AI dominance". It also noted that the label would distribute any potential royalties with the collaborators behind Smith's catalogue. "If we are successful in proving that AI assisted to compose the lyrics and melody in 'I Run' and are granted a portion of the song, we would aim to allocate every one of Jorja's collaborators with a pro-rata share," it detailed. The Continuing Growth of AI Music The emergence of algorithmically created music has been a topic of both interest and anxiety for the entertainment world. In the summer, the group Velvet Sundown accumulated vast numbers of plays before revealing they used AI to aid develop their musical style. Recently, an AI-generated "artist" known as Breaking Rust led a US genre sales chart, showing that listeners are not necessarily opposed to consuming computer-generated music. Suno was previously sued for copyright infringement by the world's three biggest record labels, but those cases have now been resolved. Subsequently, Warner Music established a collaboration with the firm, which will allow users to generate songs using the vocal likenesses, names, and images of Warner artists who agree to the service. Yet, it remains unclear how many established musicians will agree to such uses of their work. Just last week, a collective of renowned musicians such as Sir Paul McCartney, Annie Lennox, Damon Albarn, and Kate Bush issued a vinyl album featuring tracks of silence or recordings of quiet studios in protest to proposed changes to intellectual property regulations. They argue these changes would make it simpler for AI companies to develop systems using protected work without securing a permission.