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YouTube is in talks with record labels to license their songs to artificial intelligence tools that clone the music of popular artists, hoping to win over a skeptical industry with upfront fees.
Google’s video site needs tag content to legally train AI number generators as it prepares to launch new tools this year, according to three people familiar with the matter.
According to several insiders, the company recently offered large sums of money to the major labels – Sony, Warner and Universal – to try to convince more artists to use their music to train AI software.
However, many artists remain strongly opposed to AI music generation, fearing it could undermine the value of their work. Any move by a label to force their stars into such a plan would be hugely controversial.
“The sector is struggling with this. Technically the companies own the copyrights, but we have to think about how to play it,” said an executive at a major music company. “We don’t want to be seen as a Luddite.”
YouTube last year began testing a generative AI tool that lets people create short music clips by typing in a text prompt. The product, initially called “Dream Track,” was designed to mimic the sound and lyrics of famous singers.
But only ten artists agreed to participate in the testing phase, including Charli XCX, Troye Sivan and John Legend, and Dream Track was made available to a small group of creators.
YouTube is looking to sign up “dozens” of artists to roll out a new AI song generator this year, two of the people said.
YouTube said: “We have no plans to expand Dream Track, but are in discussions with labels about other experiments.”
YouTube is looking for new deals at a time when AI companies like OpenAI are signing licensing deals with media groups to train large language models, the systems that power AI products like the ChatGPT chatbot. Some of those deals are worth tens of millions of dollars to media companies, insiders say.
The deals being negotiated in music would be different. They would not be blanket licenses, but rather apply to a select group of artists, according to people briefed on the discussions.
It is up to the labels to encourage their artists to participate in the new projects. This means that the final amounts that YouTube might be willing to pay the labels have not yet been determined at this stage.
The deals would be more akin to the one-time payments social media companies like Meta or Snap make to entertainment groups for access to their music, rather than the royalty-based arrangements that labels have with Spotify or Apple, these people said.
YouTube’s new AI tool, which likely won’t be branded Dream Track, could be part of YouTube’s Shorts platform, which competes with TikTok. Talks continue and terms of the deal could still change, the people said.
YouTube’s latest move comes after major record labels on Monday sued two AI startups, Suno and Udio, who they allege are illegally using copyrighted recordings to train their AI models. A music industry group is seeking “up to $150,000 per infringed work,” according to the documents.
After facing the threat of extinction following the rise of Napster in the 2000s, music companies are trying to stay ahead of disruptive technology this time around. The labels are keen to get involved with licensed products that use AI to create songs using their music copyrights – and get paid for it.
Sony Music, which did not participate in the first phase of YouTube’s AI experiment, is in negotiations with the technology group to make some of its music available for the new tools, a person familiar with the matter said . Warner and Universal, whose artists participated in the test phase, are also in discussions with YouTube about expanding the product, these people say.
In April, more than 200 musicians, including Billie Eilish and the estate of Frank Sinatra, signed an open letter.
“If left unchecked, AI will fuel a race to the bottom that will devalue our work and prevent us from being fairly compensated for it,” the letter reads.
YouTube added: “We’re always testing new ideas and learning from our experiments; it is an important part of our innovation process. We will continue on this path with AI and music as we build the future.”