The entire music industry relies on artificial intelligence

Two years ago, “BBL Drizzy” was the take on AI music heard around the world: a song with vocals Who looked like Drake It exploded out of nowhere and launched what was shaping up to be a battle of art, likeness, and of course, copyright. The three major labels – Universal Music Group (UMG), Sony Music Entertainment, and Warner Records – He filed a lawsuit against artificial intelligence companies Udio and Suno for copyright infringement “a lot”; they Organized public quarrels and with TikTok over issues including AI content on the platform; delusion I started developing AI detection tools To observe how their music moves.

Now, the music industry and AI startups seem largely aligned on a (monetizable) path forward — and the system’s artists appear to be already stuck.

“KLAY is not a fast meme generation engine designed to replace human artists. Rather, it is an entirely new subscription product that will elevate great artists and celebrate their craft,” the press release read. “Within the KLAY system, fans can shape their musical journeys in new ways while ensuring participating artists and songwriters are properly recognized and rewarded.”

According to A Financial Times Report from Octoberbrands have been calling for a compensation framework similar to how traditional music streaming works: micropayments based on plays. Everyone from Independent artists to Taylor Swift They complained that the payment system in the streaming era squeezes out the people who actually make the music, with profits funneled to labels instead. Details of Klay’s deals weren’t immediately clear, but one can imagine that revenue pricing for AI-generated remixes could be much more complex than streaming the original song: Who gets paid, for example, when a user requests a shoegaze-style remix of a Sabrina Carpenter song? And let’s say a user-generated shoegaze clip of Sabrina Carpenter ends up going viral on TikTok, racking up millions of views — then what?

The ecosystem for AI-generated music is messy. Spotify he said in September It pulled 75 million “unwanted” audio clips in the past 12 months alone. One of the songs that has been removed by the streamer in recent weeks is “I Run” by little-known artist HAVEN. Which It was pushed to go viral via TikTok. Some users accidentally Credit for singing By R&B artist Jorja Smith, the track had 13 million streams before Spotify removed it. In September, Spotify added a new policy against artist audio impersonation. (Songs that are original compositions but sound like a real artist Opened a whole new can of worms About the person’s right to publicity.)

said the track creators Bulletin board They wrote and produced the song but handled the vocals using Suno, which allows users to create songs based on text prompts. Ultimately, Haven. He re-uploaded the track, this time using human vocals instead of Smith’s Suno-processed voice. Some listeners He seems to prefer the AI ​​version.

All of this creates a very strange future for music listening. AI-generated tracks misattributed to human artists without a licensing agreement will continue to appear, and labels will continue to go after them. But if Clay and the three major labels actually launch a remix platform, the officially licensed AI tracks on the internet will mix with the black market AI tracks. Songs will be uploaded, pulled, re-uploaded and edited, leading to a tangle of questions about ownership and compensation. With these deals, music companies are trying to walk a line that can only get muddier: AI music based on our artists is fine, as long as we get paid.