YouTube is asking for permission to clone musicians from record companies.

Last year, YouTube introduced an artificial intelligence feature that produces music in the styles of famous artists such as Charli XCX, John Legend, and T-Pain. Now, the video platform owned by Google is seeking permission from major record labels to ‘clone’ more musicians. According to the Financial Times, YouTube has offered to pay lump sums to Universal Music Group (UMG), Sony Music Entertainment, and Warner Records to license their songs for training artificial intelligence music tools legally.

YouTube aims to obtain music licenses from dozens of artists, and these songs will be used to train new artificial intelligence tools that the platform plans to release this year. While the discussions with record labels have been confirmed, the fees for the licenses have not been disclosed. It is noted that one-time payments will be made instead of royalty-based arrangements.

Sony Music has warned artificial intelligence companies against unauthorized use of their content. UMG, on the other hand, seems willing to temporarily remove its entire music catalog from TikTok following concerns over inadequate protections against music generated by artificial intelligence disrupting licensing negotiations.

In January, artists like Billie Eilish, Pearl Jam, and Katy Perry called on technology companies to stop using artificial intelligence, citing that it ‘violates and devalues the rights of human artists.’ Following these debates, it was reported that the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) filed separate copyright infringement lawsuits against two leading companies in music production with artificial intelligence. The companies allege that products derived from Suno and Udio were produced through ‘widespread unauthorized copying of sound recordings’ and RIAA is seeking compensation of up to $150,000 per infringement.