Grimes supports and promises royalties for AI-generated songs: ‘Use my voice without penalty’

While the music world reels from the advent of artificial intelligence-powered voice-mimicking programs, at least one artist is embracing the technology with open arms.

Canadian pop star Grimes said anyone is free to use her voice in the creation of AI-generated music “without penalty,” even promising to pay out royalties to creators of “successful” songs.

“I’ll split 50 per cent (of) royalties on any successful AI generated song that uses my voice. Same deal as I would with any artist I collab with,” the musician posted to Twitter recently. “Feel free to use my voice without penalty. I have no label and no legal bindings.”

In followup tweets, Grimes said her team was working on a program to simulate her voice, but will also upload voice samples with which people can train their own AI. She plans to make the program available for anyone to use, though the exact details aren’t clear.

“We expect a certain amount of chaos. grimes (sic) is an art project, not a music project,” the musician responded to the possibility of her voice being used to create offensive content. “ … The point is to poke holes in the simulation and see what happens even if it’s a bad outcome for us.”

The musician promised she’d only do copyright takedowns of AI songs in response to really “toxic lyrics,” such as songs that are “viral and anti-abortion or (something) like that.”

“That’s the only rule … (I) don’t wanna be responsible for a Nazi anthem unless it’s somehow in jest a la producers (sic) I guess,” she said, seemingly referencing the satirical film “The Producers,” which features an intentionally bad musical praising Adolf Hitler.

On Tuesday, AI music-production program Uberduck announced a $10,000 contest for people to create songs using Grimes’s voice. Participants would use the company’s AI voice generator to produce entries; the winner takes home $7,000.

“This is madness but very sick,” Grimes tweeted in response to the contest.

Not all in the music industry are embracing AI like Grimes. Last week, record industry giant Universal Music Group successfully pulled down the viral song “Heart on My Sleeve,” created using the AI-generated vocals of Drake and the Weeknd.

Although the song is still circulating on social media, it has been dropped by major streaming platforms.

AI-generated songs made with popular artists’ voices have blown up on social media in recent weeks; examples include a plethora of fake covers done in Kanye West’s voice to a cover of Beyoncé’s “Cuff It” by an AI version of Rihanna.

In a statement, Universal said AI songs are: “both a breach of our agreements and a violation of copyright law.”

Grimes appears to disagree: “I think it’s cool to be fused (with) a machine and I like the idea of open sourcing all art and killing copyright,” she tweeted.