When Robots Take the Stage: Who Owns the Voice? Human Control, Consent, and Accountability for Robotic Performers in the Music Industry

Robots are starting to share the stage with human musicians. University labs have built robots that improvise on the marimba and write and sing their own songs, and robot arms have conducted orchestras in Italy and Germany. As physical AI moves from the lab to the live venue, the music industry faces questions that today's contracts and laws only partly answer: Who controls a robot during a show? Who may give it a voice? Who answers when something goes wrong? Drawing on 40 years in the music business and on current work in AI voice-cloning governance, this paper argues that robots can make live music better only if humans stay in command. It reviews where robots genuinely help artists, summarizes the voice and likeness rules taking shape in Tennessee, the U.S. Congress and the European Union, and proposes a "Human in Command" framework: supervision, artist control, an immediate stop, written consent, audience disclosure, licensing, physical safety and clear accountability. Author's positions and core statements are his own; an AI assistant helped structure and edit the text and locate sources, which the author reviewed. This work has been submitted to the IEEE for possible publication. Copyright may be transferred without notice, after which this version may no longer be accessible.