YouTube has sidestepped controversies surrounding the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to generate new music with a new tool that clones singers' voices. The new feature, called Dream Track, is available in YouTube Shorts – the Google-owned platform's answer to TikTok that lets users post short videos. Users can enter a prompt about what sort of music style they want – such as'upbeat' or'ballad' – and select the artist they want the AI to imitate. Nine artists have allowed their voice to be copied for the tool, including Alec Benjamin, Charlie Puth, Charli XCX, John Legend, Sia and Troye Sivan. YouTube posted a short clip of what the clone version of US singer Charlie Puth sounds like – and it's impressively close to the real thing.

In a letter to streamers including Spotify and Apple Music, the record label Universal Music Group expressed fears that AI labs would scrape millions of tracks to use as training data for their models and copycat versions of pop stars. UMG instructed the platforms to block those downloads, saying it would "not hesitate to take steps to protect our rights and those of our artists". The letter, first reported by the Financial Times, comes after a similar move from the Recording Industry Association of America, the industry's trade body, last October. Writing to the US trade representative, the RIAA said that AI-based technology was able "to be very similar to or almost as good as reference tracks by selected, well known sound recording artists". The group added: "To the extent these services, or their partners, are training their AI models using our members' music, that use is unauthorised and infringes our members' rights by making unauthorised copies of our members works."

In a letter to streamers including Spotify and Apple Music, the record label Universal Music Group expressed fears that AI labs would scrape millions of tracks to use as training data for their models and copycat versions of pop stars. UMG instructed the platforms to block those downloads, saying it would "not hesitate to take steps to protect our rights and those of our artists". The letter, first reported by the Financial Times, comes after a similar move from the Recording Industry Association of America, the industry's trade body, last October. Writing to the US trade representative, the RIAA said that AI-based technology was able "to be very similar to or almost as good as reference tracks by selected, well known sound recording artists".