Voice Startup ElevenLabs Launches AI Music Service
New model allows customers to create music with AI that is cleared for commercial use. But AI-generated music still faces legal battles and stiff opposition from artists.
- ElevenLabs launched Eleven Music, an AI tool for generating music from text prompts, entering a market where copyright concerns are already present.
- ElevenLabs has deals with Merlin Network and Kobalt Music Group to train its AI model, aiming to provide legal cover for commercial use of generated music.
- The AI-music model includes safeguards and targets businesses needing music for projects, but faces legal and ethical challenges from the music industry.
Startup ElevenLabs said it has launched a new service called Eleven Music that lets individuals and businesses generate their own music with its artificial intelligence model.
Users enter a prompt in plain English, such as “create a smooth jazz song with a ‘60s vibe and powerful lyrics, but relaxing for a Friday afternoon,” and the startup’s AI model generates a tune within minutes, complete with vocals and instrumentals.
With the launch, ElevenLabs—best known for its voice generation software—enters a fraught sphere where major music labels have already sued two music-generation startups, Suno and Udio, for their alleged use of copyrighted works to train their AI.
ElevenLabs Co-founder and Chief Executive Mati Staniszewski said the three-year-old startup has a deal with Merlin Network, a digital rights agency for independent labels, to train its model on artists’ work whose rights are represented by Merlin. ElevenLabs has a similar deal with Kobalt Music Group, an independent rights management and music publishing firm.
Both Merlin and Kobalt are still finalizing which artists’ music will be involved in the training for ElevenLabs’ music AI model, the company said.
Those deals give the model’s AI-created music legal cover for broad commercial use, Staniszewski said. He hopes to also strike deals with the major labels, including Universal Music Group, Sony Music Group and Warner Music Group, he said.
“Currently we aren’t using their data in our model,” Staniszewski said, referring to the major labels’ music trove. “The model is strictly created on data that we have access to.”
ElevenLabs has also built safeguards, it said, which prevent its model from creating songs with artists’ names or specific lyrics from an album or a label. It also blocks lyrics that could incite violence, or are obscene or unlawful.
Eleven Music is geared toward both businesses and creators, the company added, allowing them to produce their own music for commercial projects or creative endeavors without the need to hire a composer or pay for a restricted-use license from a major label.
So far, the company has given 20 customers access to its AI-music model who’ve used it for film, TV and gaming, as well as fitness and meditation apps, and as individual creators. ElevenLabs declined to specify who those customers are.
Other businesses that might use AI-generated music include telecom and car companies, apps that incorporate music in their user experiences and ad firms and entertainment companies—a collection of uses commonly known as stock or production music.
Many of the jingles and stock music that would’ve required expensive and complicated licensing can be achieved at “a fraction of the cost” with AI—and that’s especially a boon to companies with limited resources, said Daniel Newman, a technology analyst who is chief executive at The Futurum Group.
Still, ElevenLabs faces challenges—not just from competitors like Suno and Udio, but from the broader creative community that wants its work shielded from AI.
The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, a performing rights organization that represents over one million people in those fields, said AI is both exciting, and sobering.
“AI can be a tool for innovation, but only if technology companies play fair and respect the rights of human creators,” said Ascap Chief Executive Elizabeth Matthews. “Allowing the unauthorized use of copyrighted works to train generative AI models for commercial purposes will threaten the livelihoods of millions of American music creators and undermine the foundation of this nation’s thriving creative economy.”
Fair use, sampling and potential licensing problems could arise for customers using AI-generated music, but lawsuits involving those issues will likely involve “a complicated and lengthy journey in the court system,” Futurum’s Newman said.
There’s also the risk of public backlash when businesses use AI-generated music, said Forrester analyst Mike Proulx.
“We continue to see a groundswell of public outcry to protect human jobs,” he said.