🔗 Share this article

The music company representing award-winning singer Jorja Smith has declared its desire to receive a share of royalties from a song it asserts was created using an AI "replica" of the singer's distinctive vocal style.

The track, titled 'I Run' by UK dance act Haven, gained massive popularity on social media last October, partly due to its smooth R&B vocals by an uncredited female vocalist.

Although its success and potential chart entry in the UK and US, the track was subsequently removed by leading music services after industry organizations issued copyright requests, stating it violated intellectual property law by impersonating another musician.

Although 'I Run' has now been reissued with different vocals, Smith's label, FAMM, insists it believes the original version was made with AI trained on her body of work and is now pursuing appropriate compensation.

A Larger Issue in Play

"This isn't just about one artist. It's bigger than a single performer or a single track," the label wrote in a recent statement.

FAMM further expressed its view that "both iterations of the song violate Jorja's rights and unjustly take advantage of the creative output of all the songwriters with whom she works."

Famous for songs like 'Be Honest' and 'Little Things', Smith was crowned Best British Female at the prestigious Brit Awards in 2019.

Implying that her supporters were possibly deceived by Haven's original track, the label concluded: "We cannot allow this to be the standard practice."

Producers Acknowledge Using AI Technology

The team behind the track have openly admitted utilizing AI during its production process.

Songwriter Harrison Walker clarified that the original voice were in fact his own but were extensively manipulated using music-generation platform Suno, often referred to as the "ChatGPT for music".

In addition, the second member, Waypoint, identified as Jacob Donaghue, confirmed on his accounts that AI was used to "give our original vocal a female quality".

Donaghue and Walker assert that they wrote and created the music themselves and have even provided evidence of their source production sessions.

"It is no mystery that I used AI-assisted vocal editing to transform solely my voice for 'I Run'," Walker elaborated.

"Being a creator and producer, I like experimenting with innovative technologies, methods and staying on the cutting edge of what's happening," he added.

"To set the record straight, the artists behind HAVEN are real and people, and all we want to do is make enjoyable music for other humans."

Legal Gray Areas and Industry Implications

Although their original version of 'I Run' was blocked from major rankings, the new version did break into the UK Top 40 last week.

FAMM has framed the incident as a significant precedent for the music industry's changing relationship with artificial intelligence.

The label stated it had "a duty to speak up" and "stimulate public discourse", because AI is advancing at an "rapid rate and substantially outpacing regulation".

"AI-generated content should be clearly labelled as such so that the audience may decide whether they listen to it or not," the message continued.

Artists as 'Unintended Damage'

Smith endorsed her label's position on her personal Instagram profile.

The text cautioned that artists and songwriters were becoming "unintended casualties in the race by policymakers and corporations towards AI dominance".

It also stated that the label would share any potential royalties with the writers behind Smith's catalogue.

"Should we are successful in establishing that AI assisted to write the words and tune in 'I Run' and are awarded a share of the song, we would aim to assign every one of Jorja's co-writers with a pro-rata share," it explained.

The Continuing Rise of AI Music

The emergence of AI-generated music has been a source of both interest and anxiety for the entertainment world.

• In the summer, the group Velvet Sundown gathered vast numbers of streams before revealing they used AI to aid craft their musical style.
• Last month, an AI-generated "performer" called Breaking Rust topped a US genre digital song sales chart, demonstrating that audiences are not always averse to consuming AI-made music.
• Suno was previously taken to court for alleged violations by the industry's three biggest record labels, though those cases have since been resolved.

Subsequently, Warner Music established a collaboration with the firm, which will allow users to create songs using the voices, names, and likenesses of Warner artists who opt in to the program.

However, it is uncertain how many well-known musicians will consent to such uses of their identity.

Just last week, a group of prominent artists including Sir Paul McCartney, Annie Lennox, Damon Albarn, and Kate Bush issued a vinyl album containing silent songs or recordings of empty studios in opposition to potential changes to intellectual property regulations.

They argue these amendments would make it simpler for AI companies to develop systems using protected work without securing a permission.