🔗 Share this article

The music company representing award-winning artist Jorja Smith has stated its intention to claim a portion of earnings from a track it asserts was created using an AI "clone" of the singer's distinctive voice.

The track, titled 'I Run' by UK dance act Haven, achieved widespread traction on TikTok last October, in part due to its polished R&B vocals by an uncredited female singer.

Although its success and potential chart entry in both UK and US, the song was later removed by leading streaming platforms after music organizations issued copyright notices, alleging it breached intellectual property law by impersonating another artist.

Although 'I Run' has since been reissued with completely new vocals, Smith's label, FAMM, insists it is convinced the initial recording was made with AI programmed on her extensive work and is now pursuing appropriate redress.

A Broader Issue in Play

"The situation is not only about one artist. This is larger than a single performer or a single track," the label wrote in a recent announcement.

FAMM also expressed its belief that "both iterations of the song violate the artist's rights and unfairly benefit from the work of all the writers with whom she collaborates."

Famous for hits like 'Be Honest' and 'Little Things', Smith was named Best British Female at the annual Brit Awards in 2019.

Suggesting that her supporters were possibly misled by Haven's first release, the label added: "We must not allow this to be the standard practice."

Creators Acknowledge Using AI Tools

The team responsible for the song have publicly admitted utilizing AI in its creation.

Producer Harrison Walker clarified that the initial vocals were actually his own but were extensively manipulated using music-generation platform Suno, often referred to as the "advanced tool for music".

Meanwhile, the second member, Waypoint, whose real name is Jacob Donaghue, confirmed on social media that AI was used to "give our original vocal a feminine tone".

Donaghue and Walker maintain that they wrote and produced the music themselves and have even shared files of their source computer files.

"This shouldn't be mystery that I used AI-assisted vocal processing to convert solely my voice for 'I Run'," Walker said.

"As a creator and maker, I like experimenting with new tools, methods and staying on the cutting edge of industry trends," he continued.

"To set the facts clear, the people behind HAVEN are real and people, and all we want to do is make enjoyable music for fellow humans."

Regulatory Uncertainty and Industry Implications

Although their first release of 'I Run' was suspended from major rankings, the replacement recording did break into the UK Top 40 recently.

FAMM has framed the entire episode as a significant precedent for the music industry's changing relationship with AI.

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

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

Artists as 'Collateral Damage'

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

The post warned that musicians and songwriters were becoming "collateral damage in the race by governments and tech firms towards AI dominance".

It further stated that the label would distribute any potential songwriting credits with the collaborators behind Smith's catalogue.

"If we are successful in establishing that AI helped to compose the words and tune in 'I Run' and are granted a portion of the song, we would aim to allocate each of Jorja's co-writers with a pro-rata share," it detailed.

The Continuing Rise of Computer-Generated Music

The emergence of algorithmically created music has been a source of both fascination and anxiety for the music industry.

• In June, the band Velvet Sundown gathered millions of streams before revealing they used AI to aid craft their sound.
• Recently, an AI-generated "artist" called Breaking Rust topped a US genre digital song sales chart, showing that audiences are not necessarily averse to consuming computer-generated music.
• Suno was last year taken to court for alleged violations by the industry's major largest record labels, though those cases have since been resolved.

Following this, Warner Music established a collaboration with the firm, which will allow users to generate songs using the voices, names, and images of Warner acts who opt in to the service.

However, it remains unclear how a large number of established artists will consent to such uses of their work.

Recently, a collective of prominent artists including Sir Paul McCartney, Annie Lennox, Damon Albarn, and Kate Bush released a vinyl album containing tracks of silence or audio of quiet studios in opposition to proposed changes to intellectual property regulations.

They contend these amendments would make it simpler for AI companies to train models using copyrighted work without securing a permission.