Grimes and Bitcoin: Music Production in the Age of AI

Grimes wrote on Twitter that she is open to her voice being used to create AI music in exchange for half the income. Frazer Harrison—Getty Images

An AI-generated song featuring a “collaboration” between Drake and The Weeknd appeared on streaming services and TikTok last month, quickly gaining millions of listens. In response, Universal Music Group, which represents the musicians, issued an agitated statement and then, as the song appeared on other platforms, embarked on a legal crack-a-mole campaign in an attempt to put the AI ​​cat back in a bag.

All this came even though the legal status of the song remains unclear. Some music industry veterans claim the song was functionally no different than a remix, while others dismissed it as a dangerous new paradigm. Rarely does a video made from a random handle create such a stir.

Then there’s Grimes, who may not be as well known as fellow Canadian Drake, but is a critically acclaimed musician in his own right. Grimes, who is not affiliated with any record label, announced that she will use the relative freedom to conduct a radical experiment called “Elf.Tech.” Using AI, Elf.Tech allows users to generate a Grimes-style work with their own inputs. In return, all Grimes is asking is tasteful use of their now-open-source talent and a 50% cut of any mastering fees.

Because the cost of producing high-quality music has fallen sharply with advances in AI, the race to design a new distribution model is on. Currently, platforms must obtain permission from both publishers and labels to play a song – in most cases, the label owns the audio recording while the publisher controls the underlying music and lyrics. In Grimes’ case, she may be the performer and also own the audio recording.

Tellingly, the first message on Elf.Tech asks users to connect to an email account or cryptocurrency wallet. Presumably, the platform expects to use blockchain and crypto to help enforce the proposed royalty split.

Unfortunately, as veterans of the NFT space know, while smart contracts have the potential to create a more efficient royalty system, the reality is that the process remains messy as NFT marketplaces circumvent the rules. Nonetheless, many are hopeful that a cultural or technical innovation — likely related to crypto — will emerge to help artists enjoy a fairer compensation system.

Even if the technology doesn’t exist to enforce it yet, my long-term bet is that Grimes’ approach will prevail over Universal’s. The reason is that the challenges of generative AI have striking parallels to the challenges of another disruptive technology: open source software.

All software began as “open source.” Software vendors will provide their customers with source code, the human-readable version of the software that is then transformed into machine code before being run. Tinkers and computer scientists would modify software, learn from it, and share ideas. As the field commercialized, the source code was closely guarded, as a trade secret. While companies profited handsomely by copyrighting their code, enabling further investment, the downside was a less cooperative environment.

The open source movement, a reaction to increasingly tight controls over software, promoted the release of source code under permissive licenses to promote the tinkering, sharing of ideas, and collaboration seen in the field’s early days. Today, open source projects range from small hobby efforts to large-scale projects such as the Linux kernel, which is distributed on billions of devices around the world.

Similarly, traditional music publishers and labels thrived in a world where counterparties and IP were tightly controlled. Their moat was legal agreements that could hoard pirates and, in some unfortunate cases, the artists themselves. As experimentation by pseudonymous creators—including those deploying AI—shifts the balance of power from this model, artists will need to find new ways to engage with the increasing commoditization of their work.

Bitcoin, the first successful cryptocurrency, succeeded largely because it was open source. Alternatives to centralized credit-issuing institutions require a radically transparent, questionable codebase to distinguish themselves from one another. Early enthusiasts trusted the result of the Bitcoin ledger because they trusted the process, and because they could check it themselves. Today’s music pioneers would be smart to take notice.

The next few years will see a more explicit distinction between design and control of music production. To that end, Grimes’ experiment is a worthy exercise that pushes the boundaries of a multibillion-dollar business and our burgeoning world of open source talent.

Kathleen Breitman is one of the founders of Tezos. The opinions expressed in Fortune.com comments are solely the views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of Fortune.