In a bold move that could change the landscape of the music marketing industry, Canadian musician Grimes has offered to split the royalties attributable to any AI-generated track featuring her voice. This announcement comes in the wake of the “Heart On My Sleeve” scandal, an AI-generated track that sounded like a Drake collaboration with The Weeknd. Despite being pulled from major streaming services, the song continues to circulate on YouTube, and she is hoping to capitalize on the trend.
Grimes recently announced on Twitter and Instagram that she’s willing to split 50% of the royalties on any AI-generated song that uses her voice and achieves success. In her post, she clarified that this would be no different from her usual collaboration agreements with other artists. The unique aspect of this offer is that the artist has no contractual obligations with a record label, giving artists the freedom to use her voice in their creations without legal repercussions.
The Canadian musician has been a vocal proponent of open-sourcing all art and killing copyright, and she sees AI-generated music as a way to push that agenda forward. In fact, Grimes is taking things a step further by developing a program that will simulate her voice and allow others to train their own AI-generated music using her stems and samples. Participants will be able to register to receive their royalties using smart contracts.
While her offer may seem like a win-win for both parties, there are some limits. Grimes has stated that she may take down AI-generated tracks that have “really, really toxic lyrics” with her voice. This is a welcome development in an industry that has been plagued by controversial lyrics and offensive content.
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