Jorja Smith’s record company is claiming royalties on a track it is alleged was created using an AI clone of the singer’s voice.
The song at the centre of all this is I Ran by Haven (nothing to do with the Manchester-based indie band from the early 2000s, this Haven is a UK dance duo).
Initially, the track went viral on TikTok earlier this year and was heading for the charts. But when it hit streaming platforms, it was taken down when it was alleged to have infringed another artist’s copyright.
Haven are producers Harrison Walker and Jacob Donaghue and Walker himself has admitted that he used his own voice to record the vocals on I Ran with a processing and filtering technique to make it sound female.
That process involved using the generative AI platform Suno and it seems that that has meant I Ran ended up with vocals that sounded like Smith’s.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Zn5O2L-T-E
Since then, Haven have done what they perhaps should have done in the first place and recorded I Ran with a real human female vocalist: Kaitlin Aragon. But that doesn’t seem enough for Smith’s record company, FAMM.
In a statement on Instagram, FAMM has said: "This isn't just about Jorja. It's bigger than one artist or one song…. We still believe both versions of the track infringe on Jorja's rights and unfairly take advantage of the work of all the songwriters with whom she collaborates".
FAMM continued: “They (Haven and their record labels) could have made the public aware that Jorja’s vocals did not feature on I Run but instead appeared to revel in the confusion that has been created.”
“A second layer of public confusion arose once doubt had been cast over whether these were in fact, Jorja Smith vocals – is it an AI track? Are these AI vocals? Again, rather than clear up the confusion immediately, they allowed the storm to brew.”
FAMM says that if they are successful in their clai,m they would seek to allocate each of Smith’s co-writers with a pro-rata share, based on the share of her catalogue they have contributed to.
For their part, Haven has defended their use of Suno. Walker has told Billboard: "As a songwriter and producer, I enjoy using new tools, techniques and staying on the cutting edge of what's happening.”
"To set the record straight, the artists behind Haven are real and human, and all we want to do is make great music for other humans."
Suno is trained on copyrighted material but has claimed that is legal under ‘fair use’ laws. Haven have said that they merely prompted the software to look for “soulful vocal samples” when creating I Ran.
Whichever way you look at it, the sooner a legal framework is established around the use of AI in music, the better for all concerned. Until that happens, the only winners are likely to be the lawyers.
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