A group of record companies, including the three biggest record labels Universal Music Group (UMG), Sony Music Entertainment and Warner Records, are suing two of the leading AI-generative music producers, accusing the companies of “collectively” infringing their copyrights.
Two AI companies, Suno and Udio, use text prompts to churn out original songs. Both have seen some success, with Suno partnering with the tech giant to make it available on Microsoft Copilot, and Udio being used to create “BBL Drizzy,” one of the most notable examples of AI music going viral.
The lawsuit against Snow was filed in federal court in Boston, while the lawsuit against Woody in New York. The record companies claim that their artists' work across genres and eras was used without their consent.
The lawsuit was brought by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), a powerful group representing the major music industry giants, and a group of record companies. The RIAA is seeking damages of up to $150,000 per release, plus other costs.
“These are clear-cut cases of copyright infringement involving the unauthorized copying of sound recordings on a large scale. Rather than placing their services on a sound, lawful footing, Suno and Udio are attempting to cover up the full extent of the infringement,” RIAA Chief Legal Officer Ken Doroshow said in a press release.
The plaintiffs say that when they accused Suno of using copyrighted works, the company deflected by saying the training data was “confidential business information.” Udio made a similar argument in a letter, according to the complaint. “If Suno had taken the effort to avoid copying Plaintiffs' recordings and incorporating them into its AI models, Suno's service would not have been able to reproduce such a wide range of convincing imitation of human musical expression with the quality that Suno advertises,” the complaint reads.
In an emailed statement, Suno CEO Mikey Shulman said the company's technology is “innovative” and designed to “generate entirely new output, rather than memorizing and repeating existing content.” Shulman said Suno does not allow user prompts based on specific artists.
“We would have been happy to explain ourselves (and did try to explain) to the record companies who filed the lawsuit, but instead of engaging in good faith they have reverted to their old lawyer-driven ways. Suno was built for new music, new uses and new musicians. We value originality,” the statement read.
In its complaint, the RIAA cited several examples of output generated using Suno and Udio that sounded like label-owned songs. One of the songs generated by Suno was titled “Deep down in Louisiana close to New Orle.” [sic] It recreates the lyrics and style of Chuck Berry's “Johnny B. Goode.” Another song, “Prancing Queen,” generated by the prompt “70s pop,” contains lyrics from ABBA's “Dancing Queen,” and bears a striking resemblance to the band.
The lawsuit marks a significant step in the music industry's fierce battle with tech companies that provide AI tools. UMG and other music publishers previously sued Anthropic for distributing copyrighted lyrics when users instructed its Claude 2 system.
Starting with a bizarre AI-based counterfeit of a Drake song last year, artists and labels have waged public battles against companies they say are illegally copying their protected works to train and develop AI tools. Some AI systems are capable of recreating identical recordings of famous artists, raising questions about how much control musicians have over their AI deepfake likenesses.
As AI-generated music proliferates online, platforms like TikTok and YouTube have also been targeted. Earlier this year, music from UMG artists, including Taylor Swift, was temporarily removed from TikTok after the companies couldn't reach a licensing deal due in part to concerns over AI. Last fall, YouTube unveiled a new system to remove AI-generated music content at the request of rights holders. In May, Sony Music wrote to hundreds of tech companies, warning them about “unauthorized” uses of copyrighted works.
Snow executives and investors have acknowledged the possibility of lawsuits. Rolling Stone A profile of Suno was published in March of this year. For some, it's simply the cost of doing business. Antonio Rodriguez, an early investor in Suno, told the magazine: “To be honest, if I'd been signed to a label when this company was founded, I probably wouldn't have invested. I think this product needed to be made without constraints.”
AI companies have been secretive about what data is used to train their models, and OpenAI is currently facing lawsuits from authors and news publishers, including: The New York Times They claim their work was included in the training data. OpenAI CTO Mira Murati has repeatedly dodged questions about whether the company's AI video generator, Sora, was trained on YouTube content.
While much of the AI-generated music won't completely replace songs by human artists, there are serious concerns in the music and other creative industries that AI content will take away their ability to monetize their work. In April, a group called the Artist Rights Alliance wrote an open letter calling on AI companies to “stop using artificial intelligence (AI) to infringe and devalue the rights of human artists.”
June 24th Update: We've added a comment from Suno CEO Mikey Shulman and links to the songs named in Suno's lawsuit.
