Google and Universal Music working on licensing voices for AI-generated songs

Google and Universal Music are negotiating a deal on how to license the voices and melodies of artists for artificial intelligence-generated songs. The artists would have a choice to opt in to the process. According to the Financial Times, the talks are at an early stage and there are no plans for an immediate product launch. The talks come after a popular and recent trend of fans using AI programs to make deepfake music that imitates artists' voices and cadence so it appears they are singing other people's songs or even new material. On TikTok, there are several viral videos of convincingly mimicked AI-made tracks of artists, usually without the consent of the artists' voices the creators are making.