A group of record labels including the Big Three – Universal Music Group (UMG), Sony Music Entertainment, and Warner Records – are suing two of the top names in generative AI music creation, alleging that the companies stole their Copyright has been violated.
Two AI companies, Listen and Udio, use text prompts to dissect original songs. Both companies have enjoyed a level of success: Listen is available for use in Microsoft Copilot though a partnership with the tech giant. Udio was used to create “BBL Drizzy”, a notable example of AI music going viral.
The lawsuit against Snow was filed in federal court in Boston, and Yudio's lawsuit was filed in New York. The label says artists of the genre and era used their work without consent.
The lawsuits were brought by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), a powerful group representing major music industry players and labels. The RIAA is seeking damages of up to $150,000 per work, along with other fees.
“These are straightforward cases of copyright infringement involving the unlicensed copying of large-scale sound recordings. Instead of maintaining their services on a sound and legal basis, Listen and YouTube are hiding the full extent of their infringement.” trying to,” RIAA chief legal officer Ken Doroshow said in a press release.
The plaintiffs say that when they accused Snow of using the copyrighted work, the company refused, saying that the training data was “confidential business information.” According to the suit, Udio made similar claims in the correspondence. “Had Snow attempted to avoid copying plaintiff's vocal recordings and incorporating them into its AI model, Snow's service would not have reproduced such a convincing imitation of such a wide range of human musical expression to this standard. Can do it according to the standard Suno says”. reads the complaint.
The suit is an important step in a contentious battle between the music industry and technology companies that offer AI tools. UMG and other music publishers first sued Anthropic for distributing copyrighted song lyrics when users pointed to the Claude 2 system.
Starting with a fake Drake song created using AI last year, artists and labels have waged a public war against companies they say protect their work by training and developing AI tools. has been illegally copied. Some AI systems are able to reproduce recordings that sound convincingly like those of known artists – raising the question of how much control a musician has over their AI deepfake likeness.
Platforms like TikTok and YouTube are also caught in the crosshairs as AI-generated music proliferates online. Earlier this year, music by UMG artists including Taylor Swift was temporarily removed from TikTok after the two companies failed to reach a licensing agreement, partly due to concerns around AI. Last fall, YouTube announced a new system for removing AI-generated music content at the request of rights holders. In May, Sony Music sent letters to hundreds of tech companies warning them of “unauthorized” use of copyrighted work.
Snow executives and investors acknowledged the possibility of being sued in one. rolling Stone Company profile this March. For some, it's just the cost of doing business: Antonio Rodriguez, an early investor in Snow, told the magazine, “Honestly, if we had dealt with labels after the company started, I Probably wouldn't have invested in it. I think they needed to make this product seamless.
AI companies have been secretive about what data is used to train their models. OpenAI is currently being sued by authors and news publishers. The New York Times Which states that their tasks were included in the training data. OpenAI CTO Meera Murthy has repeatedly deflected questions about whether the company's AI video generator Sora was trained on YouTube content.
While most AI-generated music is not a substantial replacement for human artists' songs, there is a real fear in the music and other creative industries that AI content could reduce their ability to monetize their work. In April, a group called the Artists Rights Alliance wrote an open letter calling on AI companies to “stop using artificial intelligence (AI) to violate and value the rights of human artists.”