Artificial intelligence music makers Suno and Udio have been hit with major lawsuits filed by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and major music labels for copyright infringement. The lawsuits mark the latest battle over generative AI and synthetic media and the debate over whether they represent original creations or infringe on intellectual property rights.
The RIAA was joined in the lawsuits by Sony Music Entertainment, UMG Recordings, Inc. and Warner Records, Inc. Suno was sued in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts, while Udio developer Uncharted Labs, Inc. was indicted in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. The complaints allege that both companies copied and exploited copyrighted sound recordings without permission.
Both Suno and Udio translate text cues into music, just as other tools can create images or videos based on a user’s suggestion. While there are plenty of other music AI developers, Suno and Udio were likely chosen because of their relatively successful products. Suno AI is part of Microsoft’s generative AI assistant Copilot, while Udio went viral for creating “BBL Drizzly.” The recording agencies say that the music generated by the AI models is not original, but merely an adaptation of copyrighted material. What’s striking is that the groups filing suit are doing their best to give the impression that they are not against the technology, but against the way it is being used by those companies.
“The music community has embraced AI, and we are already working with responsible developers to build sustainable AI tools that focus on human creativity and put artists and songwriters in charge,” RIAA Chairman and CEO Mitch Glazier said in a statement. “But we can only succeed if developers are willing to work with us. Unlicensed services like Suno and Udio, which claim it is “fair” to copy an artist’s life’s work and exploit it for their own benefit without permission or for a fee, undermine the promise of truly innovative AI for us all. ”
Press pause
This could be crucial in the battle for music AI, which has been escalating for some time. The viral deepfakes from Ghostwriter and its multiple synthetic songs featuring voice clones of real artists testify to the RIAA’s growing interest and danger in this technology.
TikTok and YouTube are also involved in the fray. Earlier this year, music from UMG artists including Taylor Swift was temporarily removed from TikTok due to unresolved licensing issues, driven in part by concerns about AI-generated content. In response to similar issues, YouTube last fall introduced a system to remove AI-generated music at the request of rights holders. In May, Sony Music alerted hundreds of tech companies about the unauthorized use of copyrighted material, signaling the industry’s proactive stance against unlicensed AI-generated music.
The RIAA wants the courts to find that Suno and Udio are infringing their copyrights, that they are paying for it and that they are not continuing to do so. Not surprisingly, the companies being sued disagree.
“Our technology is transformative, it is designed to generate completely new results, not to memorize and regurgitate pre-existing content,” Suno CEO Mikey Shulman said in a statement. “We would have liked to explain this to the record companies that filed this lawsuit (and we tried), but instead of having a good faith discussion, they have returned to their old lawyer-led playbook. . Suno is built for new music, new uses and new musicians. We attach great importance to originality.”
The lawsuit will not immediately affect Suno and Udio or their customers, barring an unlikely early ruling from the court. But a legal battle at this level suggests that any easy compromise is off the table. However, this step could accelerate the timetable for creating a regulatory framework and accompanying laws to support it.
Depending on how that goes, people using Suno, Udio, and other AI audio makers may have to remove the music from anything they’ve published. I wouldn’t bet everything on the current AI music scene staying the same, but the technology will almost certainly still exist regardless of the lawsuit, perhaps with new controls and official approval of all songs for training AI models.