In a landmark move, Sony Music, Universal Music Group, and Warner Records are among a slew of top record labels suing AI start-ups Suno and Udio over alleged copyright violations.
The labels said that the AI start-ups had committed copyright infringement on an “almost unimaginable scale.” They claimed that the pair’s software steals music to “spit out” similar work and asked for compensation of USD $150,000 per work.
The lawsuits were announced by the Recording Industry Association of America and are part of a wave of lawsuits from authors, news organisations, and other groups challenging AI firms’ rights to use their work.
AI tools learn in the same way as humans by reading, hearing, and seeing previous works. AI firms have argued that the use of copyrighted material is legitimate under the fair use doctrine, which allows copyrighted works to be used without a license under certain conditions, such as for satire and news.
In the complaints, the labels claim that the AI firms are not using the copyrighted material appropriately and are simply making money from copying the songs. “The use here is far from transformative, as there is no functional purpose for… [the] AI model to ingest the Copyrighted Recordings other than to spit out new, competing music files,” the complaints detail.
The labels argued that the “motive is brazenly commercial and threatens to displace the genuine human artistry that is at the heart of copyright protection” and warned it posed a threat to “the entire music ecosystem”.
Songs like “Prancing Queen” have reportedly been developed using the software, with even devoted ABBA fans struggling to differentiate the piece from a real recording from the band. Songs cited in the Udio lawsuit include Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” and “My Girl” by The Temptations.
The lawsuits come just months after 200 artists, including Billie Eilish, Nicki Minaj, and Stevie Wonder, signed an open letter calling for protections against the “predatory” use of AI tools that mimic human likenesses, voices and sound. The letter, which was issued by the Artist Rights Alliance advocacy group, didn’t call for an outright ban on the use of AI in music but demanded that technology companies pledge not to develop AI tools that undermine or replace human songwriters and artists.
“This assault on human creativity must be stopped. We must protect against the predatory use of AI to steal professional artists’ voices and likenesses, violate creators’ rights, and destroy the music ecosystem,” the letter stated.
Suno, headquartered in Massachusetts, launched its debut product last year and reports that over 10 million users have utilised its music-making tool. The company, in collaboration with Microsoft, operates on a subscription basis and has recently secured $125 million in funding from investors.
Udio, based in New York and also known as Uncharted Labs, has garnered attention with its app release in April. It gained rapid popularity as the platform used to create “BBL Drizzy,” a parody track linked to the Kendrick Lamar and Drake feud, supported by prominent venture capital investors, including Andreessen Horowitz.
