Voice startup ElevenLabs has unveiled a new AI-powered music generator, which it says individuals and businesses can use to create their own tunes free of copyright restrictions.
Founded in 2022 by Google and Palantir alums, ElevenLabs has raised millions in funding and hit a $3bn valuation with its flagship text-to-speech product, which enables publishers and other content creators to transform written content into audio.
ElevenLabs has now struck a deal with Merlin Network, a London-based digital rights agency, allowing it to train its model on songs made by artists the agency represents. The company says this means music produced by Eleven Music can be used commercially.
In an exclusive interview with the Wall Street Journal, cofounder Mati Staniszewski says he hopes to strike similar deals with major record labels like Sony, Universal and Warner in the future.
“Currently we aren’t using their data in our model,” says Staniszewski. “The model is strictly created on data that we have access to.”
The company told the WSJ it has built safeguards into the platform that prevent it from recreating "songs with artists’ names or specific lyrics" and blocking "lyrics that could incite violence, or are obscene or unlawful".
The release is likely to provoke some outcry within the music industry, where artists have lobbied to prevent AI being used to replace them.
