Canadian musician Grimes has expressed her willingness to share 50% of the royalties from her upcoming album with an AI program known as “WarNymph.” The AI was created by Grimes’s ex-partner, Elon Musk, and features on her album, producing some of the music.
@Grimezsz tweeted: “I’ll split 50% royalties on any successful AI generated song that uses my voice. Same deal as I would with any artist i collab with. Feel free to use my voice without penalty. I have no label and no legal bindings.”
The debate about the legal and ethical implications of awarding royalties to AI programs is raging; there has not been enough time to rethink or readjust copyright laws to take AI co-writers into consideration.
Grimes believes that AI-generated music has a unique quality to it and should be recognized as a form of original creation. By sharing the royalties with WarNymph, she hopes to encourage other artists to explore the potential of AI in music production.
Grimes and Musk maintain that the AI’s contribution to the album deserves recognition and compensation. They argue that the traditional model of music production (which heavily relies on human input) can benefit from the integration of AI technology. I agree; generative AI art of all kinds (images, audio, video) should be copyrightable. The question: who would own the copyright? How would you split royalties?
If you want to go deeper into the subtleties of this debate, please check out our free online course, Generative AI for Executives. There are sections on potential copyright issues for both training models and work product that will help you frame the discussion.
Author’s note: This is not a sponsored post. I am the author of this article and it expresses my own opinions. I am not, nor is my company, receiving compensation for it.