Music industry giants sue AI startups over copyright

Major record companies, including Sony Music, Universal Music, and Warner Records, sued AI music startups Suno and Uncharted Labs (developer of Udio) yesterday for allegedly using copyrighted music without permission.

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) filed lawsuits in Boston and New York, claiming Suno and Udio likely trained their AI models on extensive collections of copyrighted music, including songs from artists like Chuck Berry and Mariah Carey.

The RIAA asserts that these AI technologies mimic existing musicians’ styles of music writing and composition to create similar works and conceal that the labels’ catalogs were used.

The trade group demands compensation of up to $150,000 per infringed work. In the lawsuit, the RIAA also accuses the two startups of being evasive about the AI training datasets.

In 2023, the global music industry lost approximately $2.7 billion in revenue due to copyright infringement, according to the RIAA data.

The labels also maintain that they are open to collaboration and licensing deals.

Suno AI, which charges users a monthly fee to create music, defends its technology, stating it produces original outputs without directly referencing specific artists.

Meanwhile, Udio AI gained attention when producer Metro Boomin used it for a viral track. 

In a related development, over 200 artists signed an open letter facilitated by the Artist Rights Alliance non-profit, urging artificial intelligence tech companies to uphold artistic integrity and copyright laws.

It is not the first time companies have taken AI to court. In the past, Universal Music, along with other publishers, sued Anthropic, accusing its AI chatbot Claude 2 came up with phrases extremely similar to existing lyrics by artists like Katy Perry and the Rolling Stones.

In the world of art, several artists sued developers of Midjourney, Stability AI and DeviantArt for allegedly infringing upon the rights of millions of artists.