Warner Music, Universal Music, and Sony are suing AI start-ups Suno and Udio for $150,000 each for supposedly violating copyrights by making music that sounds like original works.
For claimed copyright violations, the biggest record labels in the world are suing two artificial intelligence (AI) start-ups. This could be a landmark case.
Warner, Universal Music Group, and Sony Music Records are among the companies that say Udio and Suno have broken copyright laws on an almost unimaginable scale. They want $150,000 (£118,200) each for each work because they say the pair’s software steals music to “spit out” similar works. When asked for reaction, Suno and Udio did not answer right away.
The lawsuits were revealed by the Recording Industry Association of America on Monday. They are part of a wave of lawsuits from writers, news organisations, and other groups that are questioning AI firms’ rights to use their work.
Suno, a company based in Massachusetts, said that more than 10 million people have used its tool to make songs since it came out last year. The company has a deal with Microsoft and charges a fee every month for its service. It just recently stated that it had raised $125 million from investors.
Venture capitalists like Andreessen Horowitz back Udio, which is based in New York and used to be called Uncharted Labs. It made its app public in April and became famous almost right away for being the one used to make “BBL Drizzy,” a song that makes fun of the beef between Drake and Kendrick Lamar.
AI Companies’ Defense and Industry Reaction
AI companies have said in the past that their use of the material is legal under the fair use theory. This doctrine says that copyrighted works can be used without a licence in some situations, like for news and satire.
People who support AI tools have said that machine learning is like how people learn by reading, hearing, and seeing old works. But in lawsuits brought in federal court in Massachusetts and New York, the record companies say the AI companies are only interested in making money by copying the songs. People who have filed complaints say that Suno and Udio make music like “Prancing Queen” that even die-hard ABBA fans would have a hard time telling apart from a real recording by the band.
A letter signed by about 200 artists, including Nicki Minaj and Billie Eilish, called for an end to the “predatory” use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the music business a few months before the cases.
