Jorja Smith's record label hits out at 'AI clone' song

Brit Award-winning singer Jorja Smith's record label has said it wants a share of the royalties for a song it claims was created using an artificial intelligence "clone" of the singer's voice.

I Run by British dance act Haven went viral on TiKTok in October thanks, in part, to smooth soul vocals by an uncredited female singer.

It was heading for the charts in the UK and the US but was banned by streaming services after record industry bodies issued takedown notices, alleging the track violated copyright by impersonating another artist.

Although I Run has now been re-released with new vocals, Smith's label FAMM said it believes the track was made with AI trained on her work, and is seeking compensation.

"This isn't just about Jorja. It's bigger than one artist or one song," FAMM wrote in a statement on Instagram.

The label said it believes "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".

Smith is known for songs like Be Honest and Little Things, and was named best British female at the Brit Awards in 2019.

Suggesting that her fans had been misled by Haven's track, the label added: "We cannot allow this to become the new normal".

The team behind the song have admitted using AI during its creation.

Producer and songwriter Harrison Walker said the original vocals were actually his own, but were heavily manipulated using music-generation software Suno - sometimes called the "ChatGPT for music".

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

Donaghue and Walker maintain that they wrote and produced the song - and even shared videos of their original computer files with Billboard magazine.

"It shouldn't be any secret that I used AI-assisted vocal processing to transform solely my voice for I Run," Walker explained.

"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 has admitted that its software was trained on copyrighted works, claiming that doing so was legal under the "fair use" laws - which allows copyrighted material to be quoted for purposes such as criticism, news reporting and research.

However, it is not known whether Smith's recordings formed part of that training data. According to Haven, they simply prompted the software to use "soulful vocal samples" while creating their song.

While their original version of I Run was suspended by both the Official Charts Company in the UK and the Billboard Charts in America, the replacement entered the UK Top 40 last week.

FAMM framed the original song's existence as a test case for the music industry's relationship with AI.

The label said it had "a duty to speak up" and "encourage public discourse", because AI is proliferating at an "alarming rate and substantially outpacing regulation".

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

Smith shared FAMM's statement on her own Instagram page.

It warned that artists and other creators were becoming "collateral damage in the race by governments and corporations towards AI dominance".

It also said the label would share any royalties with the writers behind Smith's music.

"If we are successful in establishing that AI helped to write the lyrics and melody in I Run and are awarded a share of the song, we would seek to allocate each of Jorja's co-writers with a pro-rata share," it said.

"This allocation would be based on the [percentage] of Jorja's catalogue that they have contributed to, as, ultimately, if AI helped to write I Run, it would have been trained on Jorja's catalogue of songs."

The rise of AI music has been a source of fascination and consternation for the music industry.

In June, the band Velvet Sundown racked up millions of streams on Spotify before revealing that they used AI to assist in creating their dusty, roots-rock sound.

Last month, an AI-generated "artist" known as Breaking Rust topped the US country digital song sales chart - a niche countdown, but one that shows audiences aren't averse to consuming computer-generated music.

Suno was sued for copyright infringement by all three of the world's major record labels last year, but the cases have now been settled.

Warner Music subsequently signed a partnership with the company, which will allow users to create AI-generated songs using the voices, names and likenesses of the Warner acts who opt in to the service.

It is unclear how many artists will agree to these uses.

Last week, musicians including Sir Paul McCartney, Annie Lennox, Damon Albarn and Kate Bush released a vinyl album full of silent songs, or recordings of empty studios, in protest at planned changes to copyright law, which they say would make it easier for AI companies to train models using copyrighted work without a licence.

The record had previously been uploaded to streaming services in February.