YouTube is trying to strike AI-powered music deals with major record labels

After debuting last year’s generative AI feature that creates music in the style of celebrated artists such as Charli XCX, John Legend and T-PainYouTube is now asking major record labels for permission to clone more musicians. According to Financial Times.The Google-owned video platform is offering Universal Music Group (UMG), Sony Music Entertainment and Warner Records “lump sum amounts” in exchange for licensing their songs to legally train AI music tools.

YouTube reported Financial Times. that it has no intention of expanding Dream Track – which was supported by just ten artists in its test phase – but confirmed that it is “in talks with labels about other experiments”. According to the report, the platform aims to license music from “dozens” of artists, which will instead be used to train novel artificial intelligence tools that YouTube plans to launch later this year. It hasn’t been disclosed how much YouTube is willing to pay for these licenses, but the report suggests they will likely be one-time payments rather than royalty-based arrangements.

News of these discussions comes just days after the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), which represents record labels such as Sony, Warner and Universal, filed separate copyright infringement lawsuits against two leading AI generative music companies. The labels claim that Suno and Udio products were produced using “unlicensed indiscriminate copying of sound recordings,” and the RIAA is seeking damages of up to $150,000 per infringement.