The Pop Corporation

And so it begins – like copyright law, legal action over sampling, and getting into the nooks and crannies of interpolation with ‘Blurred Lines’ – and now, it’s the turn of artificial intelligence – it was always going to happen.

This is coming from the camp of Jorja Smith as her record label has said it wants a cut of the royalties for a song which appears to have used Smith’s voice for a clone. The song in question is called ‘I Run’ by Haven, which has been doing bits on TikTok and was all set to chart in the UK and USA, but was halted after takedown notices were issued – the crime was ‘impersonation’.

The track has been re-recorded with new vocals, but the row remains, with Smith’s label FAMM wanting compensation. In a statement, FAMM said: “This isn’t just about Jorja. It’s bigger than one artist or one song.”

The added that they 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”.

They closed with: “we cannot allow this to become the new normal”.

Haven’s producer/songwriter Harrison Walker said the original vocals were his own, but were manipulated using Suno, which has been dubbed ‘the ChatGPT for music’. The other producer on the track who goes by the name Waypoint, confirmed the use of AI to “give our original vocal a female tone”.

The pair have shared videos of the production files to back their claims, however, Suno have also admitted that their software has indeed used copyrighted material to train their systems. They claim ‘fair use’. However, Suno have already found themselves in legal trouble, having been sued for copyright infringement by all three of the world’s biggest labels, which have subsequently been settled.

Warner have now signed a partnership with Suno, but it isn’t clear if their artists need to give their permission to have their likeness used in this manner.

Either way, this is surely going to be something of a test case as these types of complaint are only going to increase. FAMM have said that they feel they had “a duty to speak up” and “encourage public discourse”, given that AI is moving at an “alarming rate and substantially outpacing regulation”.