Sophia Noel, who works in the company\u2019s partnerships team, said its music model is “fully trained on licensed music, so that means that we didn\u2019t steal or take any music in order to create this system.”<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you are a user of ElevenLabs, if you create music, you own that entirely,” she added.<\/p>\n
More AI companies are pushing to striking licensing deals with talent across sectors \u2014 from film and TV to video games \u2014 to avoid blowback from artists who worry that their voices and likenesses are being used without their consent.<\/p>\n
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Oscar-winning actor Matthew McConaughey filed to trademark <\/a>himself this month to protect against unauthorized AI misuse. <\/p>\n The move followed several years of contentious debates in Hollywood over regulating AI. <\/p>\n In 2024, Scarlett Johansson slammed OpenAI<\/a> for rolling out a GPT-4o chatbot with a voice \u201ceerily similar\u201d to hers even though she had declined its request to provide her voice. OpenAI removed the voice but said it was not an \u201cimitation\u201d of Johansson. <\/p>\n Rapper Drake also took down a diss track after Tupac Shakur\u2019s estate threatened to sue him<\/a> for using an AI-generated version of Shakur\u2019s voice.<\/p>\n Even the actors union SAG-AFTRA stirred some controversy when it signed a deal with Replica Studios<\/a> to license digitally replicated voices for use in video games. The union said the agreement was an attempt to pave an ethical path for performers to engage with AI.<\/p>\n Amid backlash, some deals have continued to be made.<\/p>\n Late last year, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group signed major licensing deals with the AI music studios Stability AI and Udio \u2014 with both music labels settling their copyright infringement lawsuits<\/a> against Udio. Around the same time, UMG, WMG and Sony Music Entertainment also announced separate AI licensing agreements with Klay, a small music technology company based in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n AI-generated music has also become more prevalent and difficult to identify online.<\/p>\n Last summer, an indie band called The Velvet Sundown<\/a> got more than 1 million plays on Spotify before the supposed group admitted, after heavy speculation, that all of its tracks are generated with AI. Since then, several Spotify artists \u2014 such as Breaking Rust, Cain Walker <\/a>and Sienna Rose \u2014 have amassed millions of monthly listeners, despite being suspected of being AI.<\/p>\n Some listeners have lamented the incorporation of AI-generated music in their Spotify algorithms. Last year, around 6,300 users voted in a live poll<\/a> for the platform to \u201cintroduce a clear label for AI-generated songs and provide an option to filter them out entirely.\u201d <\/p>\n In response, Spotify announced plans<\/a> last fall to implement clearer AI disclosures in song credits and stricter impersonation rules.<\/p>\n A Consumer Reports investigation last year found that several of the leading voice-cloning companies, including ElevenLabs, had bypassable safeguards<\/a> that amounted to having users check a box \u201csaying that the person whose voice is being cloned had given authorization.\u201d<\/p>\n ElevenLabs\u2019 partnerships lead, Dustin Blank, said in an email to NBC News that the platform\u2019s more advanced professional voice-cloning feature requires users to verify their identities by \u201creading a text prompt within a specific timeframe to confirm their voice matches the training samples uploaded for replication.\u201d<\/p>\n