YouTube in talks with record companies to license music for AI-powered song generator

Despite the sums on offer, artists unconvinced

'Ask for Music’ AI song generator needs music to train on, but artists remain opposed

Google-owned YouTube is in talks with record labels in a bid to license copyrighted music on which to train its forthcoming AI song generator, ‘Ask for Music'.

The company is offering lump sums to a number of major record labels and their artists in a bid to acquire music on which to train its AI music offering. However, many artists remain opposed to such technology, believing that it could undermine the value of their work in the same way that streaming services did a decade earlier.

YouTube launched a generative AI tool last year enabling users to to create music based on text prompts, a tool called ‘Dream Track'. But only a handful of artists were signed up to it, and the tool was only provided to a small number of content creators on the platform.

Earlier this year, more than 200 artists – plus the estate of Frank Sinatra – signed an open letter condemning AI-generated music, claiming that it would "set in motion a race to the bottom" that would "degrade the value of our work and prevent us from being fairly compensated for it".

According to the Financial Times, Sony Music, Warner Music and Universal are all in talks with Google, and individual artists could choose to opt-in to the scheme. The FT reports that the compensation would be in the form of one-off payments, rather than a stream of royalties.

The news that Google is in licensing talks comes as a group of major record labels files suit against Suno AI and Udio AI over their alleged copyright infringement.

Led by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), the legal action was filed in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York and includes Sony Music, UMG Recordings, and Warner Records.

They claim that the AI services trained their technology on copyrighted sound recordings, used en masse, and are seeking damages of up to $150,000 per work infringed. The legal filing points out that the AI music services can only work "by copying vast quantities of sound recordings from artists across every genre, style and era".

RIAA chief legal officer Ken Doroshow was blunt in his assessment of the reasoning behind the record companies' lawsuit. "These are straightforward cases of copyright infringement involving unlicensed copying of sound recordings on a massive scale," he said in a statement.

He continued: "Suno and Udio are attempting to hide the full scope of their infringement rather than putting their services on a sound and lawful footing. These lawsuits are necessary to reinforce the most basic rules of the road for the responsible, ethical, and lawful development of generative AI systems, and to bring Suno's and Udio's blatant infringement to an end."