Universal Music Group and ElevenLabs have signed a multi-year licensing agreement and will build a music creation platform on it that lets fans produce remixes, mashups, new interpretations and personalised vocal experiences using tracks from artists who choose to take part.
It is ElevenLabs’ first deal with a major label, covers product development as well as licensing, and extends to further artist and fan products over the coming years. The platform is in development, will be launched by ElevenLabs, and will sit separately from its existing Music API and ElevenMusic products.
This is not the Universal catalogue; it is whichever artists and songwriters opt in, and the announcement names none of them, gives no launch date, and discloses no financial terms. Everything that determines whether this matters, including how many artists say yes and what they are paid, is absent.
What makes it a European story is who signed it. ElevenLabs was founded by two Poles, the Polish state took an $11mn stake in the company earlier this year, and its chief executive Mati Staniszewski has been talking publicly about $600mn of revenue. The first AI audio company to be licensed by the world’s largest record company is not American.
