By: Maggie Z

Big record companies are suing AI music generators for using copyrighted content to train their models. These issues have now been brought before the federal court, and both sides are ready to defend their case.

The plaintiffs of these cases are major record companies like Universal, Sony, and Warner, while the defendants are AI music generator apps Suno and Udio. These large record companies are accusing Suno and Udio of utilizing copyrighted music recordings without permission to ‘train’ their models. They claim that Udio and Suno have been obtaining popular music from the past decade and using it to help generate the music their users create. “These are straightforward cases of copyright infringement involving unlicensed copying of sound recordings on a massive scale,” says the chief legal officer of the trade organization Recording Industry Association of America, Ken Doroshow. “These lawsuits are necessary to reinforce the most basic rules of the road for the responsible, ethical and lawful development of generative A.I. systems.”

Despite these charges, Suno and Udio have neither denied nor accepted these claims, but that does not mean they have not taken measures to defend their companies. Both Suno and Udio have had multiple representatives speak on their behalf. “Our technology is transformative; it is designed to generate completely new outputs, not to memorize and regurgitate pre-existing content,” says Suno’s chief executive, Mikey Shulman. “Suno is built for new music, new uses and new musicians. . . . We prize originality.”

According to the Copyright Office, copyright infringement happens when “a copyrighted work is reproduced, distributed . . . or made into a derivative [copied] work without the permission of the copyright owner.” Penalties for this illegal reproduction can include fines ranging from $200 to $150,000 per work copied.

These cases were brought to federal court about a week ago, and both sides await judgment.