AI audio company ElevenLabs has launched Eleven Music – a platform that’s said to generate “studio-grade music” from “natural language prompts” – after striking partnerships with independent music licensing organization Merlin and publisher Kobalt.
London and New York-based ElevenLabs announced the launch on Tuesday (August 5), marking its expansion beyond voice synthesis into full AI music generation.
According to a press release, Eleven Music enables users to create tracks across any genre or style, with or without vocals, in numerous languages… within minutes.
As such, Eleven Music enters the busy generative AI music space, competing with Suno and Udio.
Unlike those two platforms, however, Eleven Music is already inking licensing agreements with major rightsholders. Said rightsholders are convinced their works are being duly protected… and compensated.
Its media release today (August 5) stated: “Eleven Music was built in partnership with artists, labels, and publishers, and includes guardrails to protect rightsholders.”
Laurent Hubert, CEO of Kobalt, said: “Our songwriters and clients entrust us to ensure that the AI revolution includes both strong protections for their intellectual property rights for AI training, as well as forward-looking and thoughtful opportunities to participate in AI revenue streams, subject to clear and fair guardrails.
“ElevenLabs has been a collaborative partner, committed to sourcing data directly from rightsholders and protecting them.”
With that in mind, it’s interesting to scan Eleven Music’sterms and conditions for making tunes on its platform.
Under ‘Prohibited Inputs’, users agree that they are “expressly prohibited” from submitting any of the following prompts:
Any artist’s (whether living or deceased) real name or stage name;
Any songwriter’s (whether living or deceased) real name or stage name;
Any song title;
Any album title;
Any music publisher company’s name;
Any music label’s name; or
A substantial or distinct portion of any song’s lyrics such that a reasonable person would determine the prompt was intended to reference a particular song.
In addition, the T’s and C’s prohibit deliberate infringement of rightsholders’ music rights – and deep-fakery:
Customer shall not prompt or induce Music to generate Output that is known or is reasonably likely to infringe any third party’s intellectual property or other protected rights.
Customer must not deploy any Output that it knew or should have known would or is reasonably likely to infringe a third party’s intellectual property or other protected rights.
Customer shall not prompt Music to generate Output that replicates or mimics the voice, likeness, or identifiable characteristics of any recording artist in a manner that is likely to be found misleading, confusing, or implies a false impression of association or endorsement.
ElevenLabs says its partnerships with Kobalt and Merlin will enable “premier artists and songwriters” represented by both organizations to participate in developing Eleven Music Pro, a subsequent model planned for release in the coming months.
Kobalt’s Hubert added, “ElevenLabs has been a collaborative partner, committed to sourcing data directly from rightsholders and protecting them.
“We are excited about this partnership and seeing ElevenLabs become a pioneer in licensing premium music for its Music Pro offering. Kobalt looks forward to working with our songwriters and partners who wish to be part of this opportunity with ElevenLabs.”
The launch represents a natural progression for ElevenLabs, which was founded in 2022 by CEO Mati Staniszewski and CTO Piotr Dąbkowski.
“ElevenLabs has been a collaborative partner, committed to sourcing data directly from rightsholders and protecting them.”
Laurent Hubert, Kobalt
To date, it’s been best known for its AI voiceover and voice agent tech, which it claims is used by millions of individuals and thousands of businesses, including employees from over 72% of the Fortune 500.
“As an AI audio company, expanding into music was a natural progression, and we are thrilled to introduce Eleven Music today,” said Staniszewski of today’s announcement.
“We’ve heard massive demand from our enterprise partners and users for a music model like this and we took our time to ship one that we’re certain they’ll love.
“We’re proud to do so in collaboration with music industry partners who recognize the vast benefits and possibilities of AI innovation in music.”
Jeremy Sirota, CEO of Merlin, added: “We are excited to partner with ElevenLabs. Our partnership with ElevenLabs demonstrates that music rightsholders can negotiate thoughtful, forward-looking agreements with AI companies.
“Together, we have created responsible guardrails that showcase how AI companies and music rightsholders can collaborate.”
“We’re proud to [launch Eleven Music] in collaboration with music industry partners who recognize the vast benefits and possibilities of AI innovation in music.”
ElevenLabs has also recently signed a training pact with SourceAudio, giving it access to millions of pre-cleared songs for AI training through SourceAudio’s dataset licensing program.
ElevenLabs’ proactive approach to music licensing currently stands in contrast to competitors Suno and Udio, both of which are facing lawsuits from major record labels over alleged copyright infringement in their training data.
While industry rumors suggest some major music companies are in licensing discussions with Suno and/or Udio, no official agreements have been confirmed to date.Music Business Worldwide
