AI Audio-Generation Unicorn ElevenLabs announced a new model on Tuesday that will allow users to generate music.
This move marks the expansion of ElevenLabs beyond its previous main focus in its three-year existence building AI audio tools. ElevenLabs is a leader in the company creating AI products for speeches from text, expanding to conversational bots and tools that translate speeches into other languages.
In addition to launch, 11 labs shared samples of AI-generated music.
One traveled home town “from Compton to Cosmos,” featuring a synthetic voice rap about “it came out through a crack with ambition in my pocket.” It’s unsettling to hear computers reflect the influence and language of artists like Dr. Dre, NWA, and Kendrick Lamar. He actually lived through the experiences this technology was trying to emulate.
Given these concerns about which substance AI music generation tools are being trained, it’s not so easy for startups to delve into the music generation.
Last year, Suno and Udio were sued by the American Recording Industry Association (RIAA), the leading trade organisation for the US music industry. These lawsuits allege that Suno and Udio trained music generation models with copyrighted materials. It is reportedly currently that companies are discussing key record labels and licensing transactions.
ElevenLabs has also announced deals with Merlin Network and Kobalt Music Group, two digital publishing platforms for independent musicians, to use the materials for AI training.
According to Merlin’s website, the company represents leading artists such as Adele, Nirvana, Mitski, Carly Rae Jepsen and Phoebe Bridgers. Kobalt represents stars such as Beck, Bon Iver, and Childish Gambino.
A representative from Kobalt told TechCrunch that artists need to voluntarily opt-in to music to obtain a license to use AI.
“Our clients are directly profiting from this agreement in several important ways. They open new revenue streams in growing markets and include revenue sharing, providing strong protection against infringement and misuse, and offer favorable terms comparable to the right representatives of other publications and records.
Updated at 12:50pm with comments from Cobalt.
