YouTube is reportedly talking with record labels about licensing their songs for AI tools that clone popular artists’ music.
People familiar with the matter told the Financial Times that Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG)-owned YouTube needs the approval of record labels to use their content to legally train AI song generators.
It has offered “lump sums of cash” to major labels Sony, Warner and Universal in a bid to convince more artists to let their music be used to train AI software, sources with knowledge of the deals told the publication.
YouTube aims to sign up “dozens” of artists and launch a new AI song in generator later in 2024, the sources added.
The video-sharing platform last year began testing a generative AI tool that allows users to create short music clips from a text prompt, initially named “Dream Track.”
Just 10 artists including Charli XCX, Troye Sivan and John Legend agreed to participate in this test and Dream Track was only made available to a small group of YouTube creators.
“We’re not looking to expand Dream Track but are in conversations with labels about other experiments,” YouTube said, according to the FT report.
Many musical artists are opposed to the use of their works in training AI.
In April, a group of more than 200 artists including Jon Bon Jovi, Billie Eilish, and Stevie Wonder published a letter which outlined their concerns about the use of AI in the music industry.
“Unchecked, AI will set in motion a race to the bottom that will degrade the value of our work and prevent us from being fairly compensated for it,” the letter said.