US record labels suing AI music generators, alleging copyright infringement
A few of the world’s biggest record labels are reportedly teaming up to take two AI music-making companies to court. This move comes amid the growing popularity of artificial intelligence.
According to a news report from NBC News, Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group, among others, filed lawsuits Monday against Suno and Udio-maker Uncharted Labs. The report stated that both companies recently released AI programs that enable users to generate songs from text prompts.
NBC News said the lawsuit was coordinated by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), the music recording industry’s largest trade organisation and were filed in US federal courts for the District of Massachusetts and the Southern District of New York.
“The music community has embraced AI and we are already partnering and collaborating with responsible developers to build sustainable AI tools centred on human creativity that put artists and songwriters in charge,” RIAA chairman and chief executive officer Mitch Glazier said in a statement. “But we can only succeed if developers are willing to work together with us.”
“Unlicensed services like Suno and Udio that claim it’s ‘fair’ to copy an artist’s life’s work and exploit it for their own profit without consent or pay set back the promise of genuinely innovative AI for us all,” he added.
The music labels allege in the lawsuits that building services Suno or Udio requires “copying decades’ worth of the world’s most popular sound recordings” in order to train their models. According to NBC, neither Suno nor Udio has publicly disclosed its training data. Both charge tiered monthly membership fees for those who wish to use their AI music generators at higher capacity.