Soul Singer the Artist's Music Company Takes Firm Position Against Viral 'Artificial Intelligence Clone' Track

The record label representing Brit Award-winning singer Jorja Smith has stated its desire to receive a portion of earnings from a track it claims was produced using an AI "replica" of the singer's distinctive voice.

The song, titled 'I Run' by UK electronic duo Haven, gained massive traction on social media in October, in part due to its polished R&B vocals by an uncredited female vocalist.

Despite its success and impending top 40 position in both UK and US, the song was later banned by leading streaming platforms after industry organizations issued copyright requests, stating it violated intellectual property law by imitating another artist.

Even though 'I Run' has since been re-released with completely new singing, Smith's label, FAMM, maintains it believes the original version was made with AI trained on her extensive recordings and is now pursuing financial redress.

A Broader Issue in Play

"The situation is not only about one artist. It's bigger than one artist or a single track," the label stated in a recent announcement.

FAMM also expressed its view that "both versions of the track violate the artist's legal rights and unfairly take advantage of the work of all the songwriters with whom she works."

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

Suggesting that her fans were potentially misled by Haven's original release, the label concluded: "Our industry must not allow this to be the new normal."

Producers Admit Using AI Tools

The team responsible for the track have openly confirmed using AI in its creation.

Producer Harrison Walker explained that the initial vocals were actually his own but were extensively altered using music-generation software Suno, sometimes called the "ChatGPT for music".

Meanwhile, the second producer, Waypoint, whose real name is Jacob Donaghue, confirmed on his accounts that AI was used to "give our starting vocal a female quality".

Donaghue and Walker maintain that they wrote and created the song themselves and have even provided files of their original production sessions.

"It is no secret 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 industry trends," he continued.

"In order to set the record clear, the artists behind HAVEN are real and people, and all we aim to do is make great music for other humans."

Legal Gray Areas and Industry Implications

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

FAMM has framed the entire episode as a critical precedent for the entertainment sector's evolving interaction with AI.

The label stated it had "a duty to speak up" and "stimulate public discourse", because AI is proliferating at an "alarming rate and substantially outpacing legal oversight".

"AI-generated content should be clearly labelled as such so that the audience may decide whether they consume it or not," the statement added.

Artists as 'Unintended Damage'

Smith shared her label's position on her own social media page.

The post cautioned that artists and creators were becoming "unintended casualties in the race by governments and tech firms towards AI dominance".

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

"Should we are successful in proving that AI assisted to write the lyrics and melody in 'I Run' and are awarded a share of the song, we would seek to assign each of Jorja's collaborators with a pro-rata share," it detailed.

The Continuing Rise of Computer-Generated Music

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

• In the summer, the band Velvet Sundown gathered vast numbers of streams before revealing they used AI to aid develop their sound.
• Last month, an AI-generated "artist" called Breaking Rust led a US country digital song sales chart, demonstrating that listeners are not necessarily averse to hearing AI-made music.
• Suno was previously sued for alleged violations by the industry's three largest record labels, but those cases have since been settled.

Following this, Warner Music entered into 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 is unclear how a large number of well-known artists will agree to such uses of their identity.

Recently, a collective of prominent musicians such as Sir Paul McCartney, Annie Lennox, Damon Albarn, and Kate Bush issued a vinyl album featuring silent songs or recordings of empty studios in protest to proposed revisions to copyright law.

They contend these changes would make it easier for AI companies to develop models using copyrighted work without securing a permission.