Google and Universal Music strike a deal over AI ‘deepfakes’​

By Jake Rickman​

What do you need to know this week?

The FT broke a story on Tuesday that Google’s parent company Alphabet, which also owns YouTube, and recorded music giant Universal struck a deal that governs AI-generated “deepfake” likenesses of recorded musicians.

The context to the deal is that YouTube is hosting an increasing number of accounts that have used AI to generate music that mimics the voices of artists like Frank Sinatra, Tupac, and Drake. Many artists and their representatives have responded with anger on the basis that they have not consented to their audio likeness being used.

The thrust of the agreement is that, subject to the artist’s consent, YouTube will pay to Universal fixed royalties in exchange for obtaining the right to host deepfake music. This will be controlled by a platform, which tracks YouTube users using AI-generated music likenesses and pays a proportionate to Universal, which will distribute these to the artists that have opted in to have their likeness used.

Presumably, if the artist does not consent to opt-in and is signed with Universal, at Universal’s request, YouTube will take down infringing content.

That said, things are in the early stages; there is no plan for an immediate product launch.

Universal’s rival, Warner Music, is also apparently in talks with YouTube.

Why is this important for your interviews?

This is an example where a new technology — generative AI — raises concrete commercial and legal issues suitable to discuss in an interview or application context. If you are interested in the buzz surrounding AI, this is a good development to drill down and flush out the salient points.

Intuitively, subject to any label agreement, an artist should own their likeness. Of course, at the point an artist signs with a record label like Universal, the label obtains certain rights over the artist’s content. A couple of generations ago, labels had extensive control over a musician’s work. But structural changes to the industry largely due to the rise of streaming and the erosion of physical music sales have empowered musicians and given them more control over how their music is licensed and sold.

Of course, until recently, technology was not capable of creating convincing copies of an artist’s voice. But now that third parties can create authentic-sounding tracks without the consent of the artist, many musicians feel that they will lose control of their sonic likeness, which is of course their most valuable asset.

How is this topic relevant to law firms?

The law probably has not determined which party obtains the right of use and distribution of AI-generated content. While it is inevitable that these legal issues will wind their way up through the courts, and may even become the subject of statutory regulation, no doubt YouTube is seeking to minimise its legal risk while maximising the commercial upside in negotiating agreements with labels and their portfolio of artists.

From a legal perspective, this raises issues related to entertainment law, intellectual property and copyright, licencing agreements, as well as e-commerce disputes. Law firms with expertise on the entertainment front include boutique Westend firms like Clintons, Lee & Thompson, and Russells, as well as more generalist players like CMS and Reed Smith.