RIAA Deems ‘AI Vocal Cloning’ a ‘Notorious Market for Counterfeiting and Piracy’

Another day, another piece of AI news. This time, the RIAA is involved, having filed its annual report on global threats to copyright law to the U.S. government last week and naming vocal cloning technology as a threat.

Fill me in: The RIAA’s Oct. 6 “Notorious Markets for Counterfeiting and Piracy” report to the Office of the US Trade Representative included a brand new category this year: AI Vocal Cloning. The music rights group specifically named the website Voicify.ai, which offers AI models of famous voices including Michael Jackson, Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande, Taylor Swift, Elvis Presley, Eminem, Adele, Ed Sheeran and more. Also popular options? Donald Trump and SpongeBob SquarePants.

The subscription service works by ripping audio from YouTube videos and feeding the files to its AI software, which then spits out unauthorized copies of the modified acapella stem, the underlying instrumental bed and the modified remixed recording. “This unauthorized activity infringes copyright as well as infringing the sound recording artist’s rights of publicity,” reads the RIAA’s write-up.

The RIAA also noted it believes Voicify’s domain was registered by someone based in the UK. It also found that the site tracked nearly 9 million visits in the past year alone. 

What they’re saying: “The year 2023 saw an eruption of unauthorized AI vocal clone services that infringe not only the rights of the artists whose voices are being cloned but also the rights of those that own the sound recordings in each underlying musical track,” added the RIAA in its submission. “This has led to an explosion of unauthorized derivative works of our members’ sound recordings which harm sound recording artists and copyright owners.”