Two answers to AI voices: Céline Dion disowns the fakes, while Sevdaliza licenses hers for a 50% split

Céline Dion's team has a message for fans: the AI songs in her voice aren't hers. In an Instagram post, the team wrote that "unsanctioned, AI-generated music purporting to contain Céline Dion's musical performances, and name and likeness, is currently circulating online and across various Digital Service Providers," as quoted by CBC Music. The second sentence, quoted by TODAY, told fans the recordings "are fake and not approved, and are not songs from her official discography." TODAY reported the post on 7 March; CBC dates it 8 March.

In August 2023, the Iranian-Dutch artist Sevdaliza made the opposite choice. She opened an AI model of her own voice, called Dahlia, to anyone on the platform Myvox, and takes half of the royalties from what they release.

We don't think one of these artists is right and the other wrong. They show the two real options an artist has once a voice can be cloned, and what each option needs to work.

What exactly is Dion objecting to?

The team didn't name any tracks. CBC found an AI song on YouTube called Heal Me Lord that mimics her voice and has more than a million views, plus other fakes such as I Saw Jesus and Free Indeed. Global News reported that several of these YouTube uploads are credited as an AI model of her voice. Others put her in AI "duets", including I Will Always Love You with Whitney Houston and See You Again with Charlie Puth.

The context makes this harder. Dion announced in 2022 that she has stiff person syndrome, a rare neurological disorder that affects her singing voice. Her recent authentic releases are few: CBC lists her Hymne à l'amour from the Paris Olympics opening ceremony and the soundtrack to her documentary I Am... Céline Dion. She isn't the only target either. Global News notes fake songs circulating for The Weeknd, Alanis Morissette and Shawn Mendes.

How does Sevdaliza's deal work?

Myvox launched on 14 August 2023, founded by the independent musicians Maeve (Arianna Broderick) and John Clancy, according to Dazed. A creator records or uploads a vocal, the platform converts it into a licensed artist's voice, and the track can be distributed to streaming services from Myvox. At launch, MusicTech reported a free tier with two artist-voice conversions a week, and a $14.99-a-month tier that added unlimited conversions, two releases a month and automated royalty payments.

Dahlia was the first artist voice on the platform. It grew out of a "femenoid robot" Sevdaliza introduced in her OH MY GOD video, and the character also exists as a physical robot. Creators can transform their vocals into Dahlia's and release the results, and "Sevdaliza will receive a 50 per cent split of all royalties," Dazed reported. Scene Noise and MusicTech report the same 50% split. MusicTech adds that artists on Myvox set their own royalty splits.

Sevdaliza described the arrangement this way: "Myvox basically allows people to imagine who Dahlia is, instead of Dahlia imagining herself." She told Dazed she uses AI "for every aspect in my creative process," and also that "I don't think the creative process will be fully replaced by AI."

The template came from Grimes, who in April 2023 offered to "split 50% royalties on any successful AI-generated song that uses my voice." She kept one lever: she said she might use copyright takedowns against "rly rly toxic lyrics" sung in her voice.

What we think

Refusing and licensing look like opposites. They rest on the same foundation: a clear, public record of what the artist has agreed to, and someone with the power to enforce it.

Dion's statement is a refusal without that machinery. An Instagram post tells fans what's fake, but it removes nothing. The uploads are on YouTube and, by her team's account, on streaming services, and pulling them down is work for the platforms and her lawyers. The fakes also land where demand is unmet: an artist whose illness limits new recordings, and an audience that wants more of them. That's exactly where cloning does the most harm, because a convincing fake competes with a catalogue the artist can't easily add to. The fair ask of platforms is that an artist's explicit "no" should be at least as easy to register as an upload is to make.

Sevdaliza's licence is consent given up front and priced. That's a real advantage for an independent artist: she gets income and attention from work she didn't have to make. Two details make it smarter than it looks. First, the voice is released under a character name. Tracks are Dahlia's, which, as far as the reporting describes, keeps fan-made songs out of Sevdaliza's own discography, the very line Dion's team is trying to draw by statement. Second, the 50% sits on the royalties, so she is paid on what earns rather than charging creators up front.

The control is thinner than the consent, though. Grimes kept a takedown right for abusive lyrics. None of the reporting on Dahlia that we read describes a way for Sevdaliza to approve or veto individual tracks before release, and the coverage doesn't set out Myvox's licence terms. A voice licence is also only as durable as the platform that holds it: payouts, takedowns and the record of who agreed to what all live with Myvox.

So the honest comparison isn't "open versus closed". It's about where consent is recorded and who enforces it. An artist choosing to license needs a veto over context, not just a cut of revenue. An artist choosing to refuse needs platforms to act on a "no" without a lawsuit. The same goes for everyday tools: AI that works on your own recordings and leaves the result with you, as Veena says of its AI DAW, where "everything you make stays yours", is the low-stakes version of the same principle. Whatever the tool, the artist decides what their voice is used for, and the record of that decision has to be in writing.

Sources

• CBC Music, Céline Dion's team releases statement on 'unsanctioned' AI recordings (10 Mar 2025)
• TODAY, Céline Dion warns against 'unsanctioned, AI-generated music' purporting to be her (7 Mar 2025)
• Global News, Celine Dion alerts fans to AI-generated songs that mimic her voice (8 Mar 2025)
• Dazed, Sevdaliza on open-sourcing her voice and embracing AI (16 Aug 2023)
• Scene Noise, Myvox AI Music Licensing Debuts With Iranian-Dutch Artist Sevdaliza (22 Aug 2023)
• MusicTech, Licence and monetise your AI voice models with new music platform Myvox (17 Aug 2023)
• Resident Advisor, New music platform myvox lets artists licence and monetise their own AI voice model (16 Aug 2023)
• Hypebot, Grimes offers AI creators a 50% royalty split for using her voice (25 Apr 2023)
• Veena Studio, Veena