Jorja Smith’s Label Hits Back at ‘I Run,’ Demands Cut of the Track

FAMM, the UK-based record label of British singer Jorja Smith, is demanding she be credited on “I Run,” the AI-assisted song by British act HAVEN. It’s also seeking a share of the proceeds from the track.

How we got here:

• In October, EDM track “I Run” became an overnight viral sensation when it accumulated millions of plays on TikTok.

• At that point little was known about its creator, HAVEN, which was later revealed to be the new project of British producers Harrison Walker and Jacob Donaghue.

• The uncredited female vocalist sounded exactly like British R&B singer-songwriter Jorja Smith, who even took to social media to confirm it wasn’t her.

• Walker claimed it’s his voice, and via processing and filtering he turned it into a female-sounding track. That filtering included the use of genAI platform Suno.

• As per Digital Music News, questions were then raised about whether the vocals were an unauthorized “deepfake” of Smith’s voice.

• After racing up the Spotify charts, the song was removed from streaming services due, in part, to takedown notices from Smith’s label, The Orchard, as well as the RIAA and IFPI.

• Though Walker and Donaghue can prove they wrote the song, the issue stems from their admission of using “AI-assisted vocal processing,” with Digital Music News pointing out that it’s possible Suno used Smith’s music and voice in its training.

• HAVEN has since released a re-recording of the song featuring the vocals of real human singer Kaitlin Aragon.

FAMM’s POV:

• FAMM has released a lengthy Instagram post, claiming that both versions of the song “infringe on Jorja’s rights and unfairly take advantage of the work of all of the songwriters with whom she collaborates.”

• The label also claims to have refused an invitation for Smith to sing on a remix.

• It says it is seeking a share in the rights of the song, to be divided among the co-writers across Smith’s catalog, “as, ultimately, if AI helped to write ‘I Run,’ it would have been trained on Jorja’s catalogue of songs.”

• More broadly, FAMM also wants to use this episode to spark “a discussion that is so desperately needed” about AI’s evolution.

• The full post is here.