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The music company representing Brit Award-winning artist Jorja Smith has declared its desire to receive a portion of earnings from a song it asserts was produced using an AI "replica" of the performer's unique vocal style.

The track, titled 'I Run' by UK dance act Haven, gained massive popularity on TikTok last October, partly due to its smooth R&B singing by an uncredited female singer.

Despite its momentum and potential chart position in both UK and US, the track was subsequently removed by major streaming platforms after industry bodies sent takedown requests, stating it violated copyright by impersonating another artist.

Even though 'I Run' has now been reissued with completely new singing, Smith's label, FAMM, insists it is convinced the original version was generated with AI trained on her body of work and is now pursuing financial compensation.

A Larger Principle at Stake

"The situation is not only about one artist. It's larger than one artist or one song," the label wrote in a recent statement.

FAMM further expressed its view that "both iterations of the song violate Jorja's rights and unjustly take advantage of the creative output of all the writers with whom she collaborates."

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

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

Creators Admit Employing AI Technology

The duo behind the song have openly admitted using AI in its creation.

Producer Harrison Walker clarified that the original voice were actually his own but were extensively altered using AI music platform Suno, sometimes called the "ChatGPT for music".

In addition, the other producer, Waypoint, whose real name is Jacob Donaghue, stated on social media that AI was used to "apply our starting vocal a feminine quality".

Donaghue and Walker assert that they composed and created the music themselves and have even shared evidence of their source computer files.

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

"Being a creator and maker, I like experimenting with new tools, techniques and staying on the cutting edge of what's happening," he added.

"To set the record straight, the people behind HAVEN are real and people, and all we want to do is make great music for other humans."

Regulatory Gray Areas and Industry Impact

While their first version of 'I Run' was suspended from official charts, the new recording did enter the UK Top 40 last week.

FAMM has framed the incident as a critical test case for the music industry's evolving interaction with artificial intelligence.

The label argued it had "a duty to voice concerns" and "encourage wider discussion", because AI is proliferating at an "rapid rate and substantially outpacing legal oversight".

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

Creators Become 'Collateral Victims'

Smith shared her label's statement on her personal Instagram page.

The post cautioned that artists and songwriters were turning into "collateral damage in the competition by policymakers and tech firms towards AI dominance".

It further stated that the label would distribute any potential royalties with the collaborators behind Smith's catalogue.

"If we are successful in establishing that AI helped to compose the words and tune in 'I Run' and are awarded a share of the song, we would aim to allocate each of Jorja's co-writers with a pro-rata share," it detailed.

The Ongoing Rise of AI Music

The emergence of algorithmically created music has been a source of both interest and consternation for the music industry.

• In June, the group Velvet Sundown gathered vast numbers of streams before disclosing they used AI to help develop their sound.
• Last month, an AI-generated "artist" called Breaking Rust led a US genre digital song sales chart, demonstrating that audiences are not necessarily opposed to hearing computer-generated music.
• Suno was previously taken to court for alleged violations by the industry's three largest record labels, but those cases have now been resolved.

Subsequently, Warner Music established a collaboration with the company, which will allow users to generate songs using the vocal likenesses, names, and likenesses of Warner artists who opt in to the program.

However, it is uncertain how many established artists will consent to such uses of their identity.

Just last week, a collective of renowned musicians such as Sir Paul McCartney, Annie Lennox, Damon Albarn, and Kate Bush issued a vinyl album containing tracks of silence or recordings of quiet studios in protest to proposed changes to intellectual property regulations.

They contend these changes would make it simpler for AI companies to develop models using copyrighted work without securing a permission.