AI audio generation company ElevenLabs announced on Tuesday the launch of a new music generation model, claiming that users can use the generated music for commercial purposes. This marks the three-year-old unicorn company's first breakthrough beyond its core business, officially entering the competitive AI music creation market.
ElevenLabs previously focused mainly on AI audio tool development, leading in text-to-speech AI products, and later expanded its business to dialogue robots and cross-language voice translation tools. The introduction of music generation features represents an important step for the company into a broader AI creation field.
At the time of the product release, ElevenLabs publicly shared several samples of AI-generated music. One piece used a synthetic rap style with lyrics describing "rising from the shadows with ambition" and "leaving home from Compton to space." This practice of AI imitating the language styles and life experiences of real artists such as Dr. Dre, N.W.A., and Kendrick Lamar has sparked deep discussions in the industry about the boundaries of AI creation.
Image source note: The image was generated by AI, and the image licensing service provider is Midjourney
The copyright issues in the AI music generation field have always been under close attention. Last year, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) sued two companies, Suno and Udio, accusing them of using copyrighted materials when training their music generation models. It is reported that these two companies are currently negotiating licensing agreements with major record labels.
To avoid potential legal risks, ElevenLabs adopted a more cautious strategy. The company announced partnerships with independent music digital distribution platforms Merlin Network and Kobalt Music Group, obtaining formal authorization to use music materials from these platforms for AI training.
According to Merlin's official website, the platform represents many well-known artists, including Adele, Nirvana, Mitski, Carly Rae Jepsen, and Phoebe Bridgers. Kobalt, on the other hand, represents star artists such as Beck, Bon Iver, and Childish Gambino.
A representative from Kobalt told TechCrunch that artists must actively choose to join in order for their music to be authorized for AI use. The representative further explained the multiple values of the collaboration: "Our clients gain multiple key benefits from this agreement: they open up new revenue streams in the growing market, profit-sharing mechanisms allow them to participate in added value revenues, provide strong protection against infringement and abuse, and offer favorable terms comparable to other publishers and recording rights holders."
This authorized-based business model offers a new development idea for the AI music generation industry. By establishing legal cooperation with copyright holders rather than simply using music materials from the internet for training, ElevenLabs attempts to find a balance between technological innovation and copyright protection.
ElevenLabs' move also reflects the trend of maturation in the AI creation tool market. With the strengthening of legal regulation and the establishment of industry standards, AI companies are increasingly required to obtain training data through legitimate means, which may drive the entire industry toward a more standardized direction.