By: Claire Liu
A.I these days have become a pretty big thing for global civilization and is used by some on a daily basis. This usage means that many things are now generated by A.I . Image generators, answer generators, and even music generators. Major Music Companies who believe in authentic sounds, especially don’t like the music generators. As of Monday, June 23, Udio and Suno, two digital music generator companies, have been sued for their use of AI. The unhappy companies that were part of the decision include Sony, Universal, and Warner conglomerates, all accusing the digital music generators of using copyrighted songs and music.
Just like any other A.I generator, Udio and Suno can create songs almost instantly just by a simple text or command. This means you can give the generator a song or sound for reference, and the A.I will analyze its algorithm to produce music. The efficiency and simplicity of these generators allow the company to gain more users and therefore more power. The new sounds that were generated from old ones often catch the eye of music producers, as it allows music to be created quickly and can be used for several types of music.
Several lawsuits from the case explain that the songs produced by the A.I music companies were only possible because the systems were “trained on reams of intellectual property that the plaintiffs own”, meaning the companies were using original songs created by the major music studios to create music. A lawsuit also mentions that the foundation of a service like Udio’s requires “copying and ingesting massive amounts of data” to prepare a software model to generate sounds. For Udio, the process includes copying decades worth of the world’s most popular music for the system. The systems would analyze an existing piece of popular or classic music, and then learn about its data and algorithm to create new sounds.
To defend their company, Udio stated on their website that, “Just as students listen to music and study scores, our model has ‘listened’ to and learned from a large collection of recorded music. The goal of model training is to develop an understanding of musical ideas — the basic building blocks of musical expression that are owned by no one. Our system is explicitly designed to create music reflecting new musical ideas.”
In simpler words, Udio is explaining how they take in music and sounds to study and understand them, and they aren’t copying anything directly. However, lawsuits are still against what Udio claims, accusing the companies of training their systems with material that is not their own original work. This is not new, as many A.I companies have been sued for copyright infringement or for training their systems with the work of others, despite their claims of originality. The systems all need something to train them, even if it means using already existing and unoriginal work to generate it. And just like that, at the end of the day this way of using others’ ideas to create your own has led to these A.I companies being sued.