A new music streaming service created in collaboration with all the major record labels will soon launch, with generic AI functionality at its centerpiece, Bloomberg’s Lucas Shaw reports. The labels in question are Warner Music Group, Universal Music Group and Sony Music.
That report said the service is called “clay,” an amusing misspelling of a word for a pulpy, formless substance. Incidentally, another word for a pulpy, formless substance is “slop.”
About a year ago, Clay inked a deal with Universal to team up on an AI music project he described as “ethical”, but reports at the time did not make it clear what type of product or service this partnership might produce.
Someone named Arya AT is listed on LinkedIn as the founder of Klee. Klay has a website, klay.vision, where users can join the waiting list, and see the slogan “Music Set Free”, but no other information.
On the same day as Bloomberg’s report, news also came that Warner, one of the companies involved in the deal, had settled a lawsuit with AI music creation company Udio, and was preparing to join forces with Udio on a song creation platform — presumably a separate venture from Clay, though that’s not entirely clear yet. (Gizmodo has reached out to Warner for clarity, and will update if we hear back). Universal settled a similar lawsuit against Udio on October 30.
Assuming the Bloomberg report is correct, it is clear that these record companies have now evolved into an entirely new form in which they also see themselves as AI companies. He never seemed particularly hostile towards technology. Despite ongoing lawsuits against companies like Udio, “the music community has embraced AI,” Mitch Glazier, CEO of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), said in a statement last June. But Glazier and his colleagues “will only succeed,” he said, “if developers are willing to work closely with us. Unlicensed services like Listen and Udio that claim it’s ‘fair’ to copy an artist’s life’s work and exploit it for their own profit without consent or payment reject the promise of truly innovative AI for all of us.”
“This new service apparently resolves all of these concerns to the labels’ satisfaction,” Shaw writes, “assuring that artists and labels will have some control over how their work is used.”
Details about how the clay will work are scant. Shaw indicates that it will be like Spotify, but with AI functions available so users can “remake” songs “in different genres.” By partnering with all the major labels, Clay was apparently able to license “thousands” of hit songs for legal training purposes.
Reading between the lines it looks like there will likely be some kind of text input. Maybe you’ll be able to fire up Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” and type “make it a polka.” Presumably after some processing, Clay would spit out something that sounded somewhat like a brilliant, faithful uptempo reconstruction of “Weird Al” Yankovic’s “Bohemian Rhapsody,” with a new arrangement and an excellent polka performance, minus all the joy, spontaneity and obvious love for the original material that comprises such a feat of artistry.
And since artists generally own their sheet music and the likeness of their voices, if not their actual recordings, it is logical that they might have. Some? Says legal, which explains why there would be controls for the artist. For example, although I’m not a copyright lawyer, it seems like a label probably wouldn’t be legally allowed to let a user create a realistic Alicia Keys voice singing one of her actual tunes, but with words about poop and farts.
And if Clay’s audio output is up to the standard set by existing AI music generators, it will probably sound tolerable. A recent survey has shown quite clearly that people actually can’t distinguish AI-generated music from human-generated music at all. But 51% of respondents in that survey also said they think AI-generated music will lead to the existence of more generic, low-quality music in the world.
Gizmodo has contacted Clay for confirmation and details, and will update if we hear back.