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Grimes offered to split royalties with any producer that wants to use an AI version of her voice to make a song. Zero offense to Grimes, but good luck making money doing that

“PLEASE FEEL FREE to use my voice without penalty”

Grimes just fast forwarded all of us straight into the future of the music business. Stating that she has “no label” and “no legal bindings,” the Canadian recording artist announced on Twitter and Instagram that she would split 50% royalties on any successful AI generated song that uses her voice.

THE PROFIT SHARING is to be applied to “viral” or “super popular” tracks

While she's not the first recording artist to propose this, she appears to be the highest profile, and most well known. So where does this go from here? Let’s game it out, shall we?

SAY YOU MADE a Grimes soundalike song tonight, and decided to just go ahead and throw it up on your socials

How exactly would you get paid? Well, you could theoretically land an instant record deal. These typically take the form of a cash advance from the label that you then have to pay back, using the proceeds from your music. And you only see any money after repaying the label for their outlay in full.

FAILING AN INSTANT record deal, you could go ahead and post the full version of your new AI Grimes song to Spotify

Well, kind of.

As an indie artist, you actually can't just upload your music directly to Spotify. You need to go through a music distributor site. These folks typically vet tracks before uploading them to Spotify a few days later. Once your song is up there, though, streamers do pay… a tiny fraction of a cent for every stream. (Like, literally US$0.003 for every play).

You could also post it on YouTube, where you might be able to share in some sweet advertising revenue —as long as you already have at least 1,000 subscribers, which is the following you need in order to apply to YouTube's Partner Program, which is how you can monetize your channel.

SPEAKING OF ADVERTISING, you could theoretically license your new AI Grimes track to a TV production company, or to an ad agency for use in a commercial

However, you would definitely have to go through a music licensing platform in order to do that, and demonstrate that you own the rights to the song.

You catch the drift: most of the structures for paying artists favor traditional players and verifiable ownership.

PLOT TWIST: AI music producers (what I’ve nicknamed “bedroom Rick Rubins”) are not going to make much money at all from soundalikes

The reason is not (just) that the system, as briefly outlined above, is set up to compensate existing rights holders and industry insiders.

It’s the fact that we're all about to move from an era of scarcity to an age of abundance, thanks to generative AI.

Get ready for a whole lot of formerly “economic goods” like ad campaigns and hit singles going from being these really scarce things that people can sell for a lot of money, to really abundant things that anyone can make (and therefore can't be sold for a lot of money).

EXHIBIT A: “AI Drake”

A second AI generated “Drake” track went viral in as many weeks. This one really does show just “how easy it is for someone to use a familiar celebrity voice to make a song go viral,” as The Verge puts it.

The track, “Not a Game,” was posted up on SoundCloud and YouTube late last week, days after another fake Drake song called “Heart on My Sleeve” went viral. “Not a Game” even got mentioned on TMZ and in the Daily Mail, which brought it even more attention.

But guess what? “Not a Game” isn’t a new track at all. The Verge found that it’s built from preexisting elements, with the fake Drake voice simply layered on top.

As The Verge put it, “this relatively low-effort creation shows just how powerful the ability to clone a musician’s voice is —and just how easy it is for creators to assemble a new track from a major artist.”

SO, GRIMES’S ROYALTY revenue split offer, while both interesting and noble, flies directly in the face of what this whole generative AI situation really means

Which is that hit singles aren't “economic goods” anymore. Producers and Grimes aren’t going to make any money off of a viral song that uses an AI version of her voice, simply because there's going to be one coming after it, and one behind that, and one behind that as well.

It’s pretty hard —though not impossible— to monetize something that's totally free and abundant.

PS — THE REAL story behind this whole episode may well be a reminder that we live in an attention economy

When was the last time anyone this many people and publications were talking about Grimes’ music? Credit is due to her for initiating a spirited conversation about this new and interesting chapter.

As one user playfully pointed out, Grimes took a page from her ex Elon Musk’s playbook: “Twitter announcement first, then let’s figure out the details after.”

She had a good comeback though: “In my defense this has always been a Grimes feature too.”

Hit songs may no longer be economic goods, but attention most certainly is.

More:

Grimes invites fans to deepfake her voice »»

Elon Musk figured out the media’s biggest weakness »»

Grimes reluctantly considers some rules to her no-rules AI vocal project: ‘we expect a certain amount of chaos’ »»

The latest viral Drake AI hit is just a repurposed SoundCloud rap »»

“I don't think ppl have grasped the historical nature of what just happened with AI Drake” »»

Written by Jon Kallus. Any feedback? Simply reply.