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The music company representing award-winning artist Jorja Smith has declared its desire to claim a share of earnings from a song it asserts was created using an AI "replica" of the performer's unique vocal style.

The track, titled 'I Run' by UK electronic duo Haven, gained massive traction on TikTok last October, in part due to its smooth soul singing by an unnamed woman singer.

Despite its success and potential chart position in the UK and US, the song was later banned by major streaming platforms after music organizations sent copyright notices, alleging it breached intellectual property law by imitating another musician.

Although 'I Run' has since been re-released with completely new singing, Smith's label, FAMM, maintains it is convinced the original recording was made with AI trained on her extensive recordings and is now seeking appropriate compensation.

A Larger Issue at Stake

"This is not only about Jorja. It's larger than a single performer or one song," the label stated in a recent announcement.

FAMM further expressed its view that "each versions of the track violate the artist's legal rights and unfairly take advantage of the work of all the songwriters with whom she works."

Famous for songs like 'Be Honest' and 'Little Things', Smith was crowned Best British Female at the annual Brit Awards in 2019.

Implying that her supporters were potentially deceived by Haven's first track, the label concluded: "We must not allow this to become the new normal."

Creators Acknowledge Using AI Tools

The duo behind the song have publicly confirmed using AI in its creation.

Producer Harrison Walker explained that the initial voice were in fact his own but were heavily altered using music-generation platform Suno, sometimes referred to as the "ChatGPT for music".

In addition, the second producer, Waypoint, identified as Jacob Donaghue, stated on social media that AI was used to "give our starting vocal a feminine quality".

Donaghue and Walker maintain that they wrote and created the song themselves and have even shared files of their original computer files.

"This is no secret that I used AI-powered vocal processing to transform exclusively my voice for 'I Run'," Walker said.

"As a songwriter and producer, I like experimenting with innovative technologies, techniques and remaining on the forefront of what's happening," he continued.

"In order to set the record straight, the people behind HAVEN are real and people, and all we aim to do is make enjoyable music for other humans."

Legal Uncertainty and Broader Impact

While their first version of 'I Run' was blocked from major rankings, the new version did enter the UK Top 40 recently.

FAMM has positioned the entire episode as a critical test case for the music industry's changing interaction with artificial intelligence.

The label stated it had "a duty to voice concerns" and "encourage public discourse", because AI is proliferating at an "rapid rate and substantially exceeding legal oversight".

"Computer-created content should be transparently labelled as such so that the audience may choose whether they listen to it or not," the statement added.

Artists as 'Collateral Victims'

Smith endorsed her label's position on her personal social media page.

The post cautioned that musicians and songwriters were becoming "collateral damage in the race by policymakers and corporations towards AI supremacy".

It also noted that the label would share any potential songwriting credits with the writers behind Smith's music.

"If we are able in establishing that AI helped to write the lyrics and melody in 'I Run' and are awarded a portion of the song, we would seek to assign every one of Jorja's collaborators with a pro-rata share," it explained.

The Ongoing Growth of AI Music

The emergence of AI-generated music has been a source of both interest and anxiety for the entertainment world.

• In June, the group Velvet Sundown accumulated millions of streams before disclosing they used AI to aid craft their musical style.
• Last month, an AI-generated "artist" known as Breaking Rust led a US genre digital song sales chart, showing that listeners are not necessarily opposed to hearing computer-generated music.
• Suno was previously taken to court for alleged violations by the industry's major largest record labels, though those cases have now been settled.

Subsequently, Warner Music established a collaboration with the firm, which will allow users to generate songs using the vocal likenesses, names, and likenesses of Warner acts who agree to the service.

However, it is uncertain how many well-known musicians will agree to such uses of their work.

Recently, a collective of prominent musicians such as Sir Paul McCartney, Annie Lennox, Damon Albarn, and Kate Bush issued a vinyl album containing tracks of silence or audio of empty studios in opposition to proposed revisions to copyright law.

They argue these changes would make it simpler for AI companies to train models using copyrighted work without obtaining a license.