The past few months have kept the labels’ lawyers busy. Last year, the companies launched a major lawsuit against the same two startups for copyright infringement, seeking up to $150,000 per unlicensed work—an amount that could end up totaling billions, per Bloomberg. Udio and Suno both offer generative AI-assisted music software that spits out fake songs in response to whatever prompts users dream up. Of course, to create those fake songs, the companies needed to train the software on a lot of real songs, leading to the initial dispute. It’s the same fight we’ve seen across almost every industry in the media and entertainment worlds as AI continues to advance, and in doing so, necessitates the use of more copyrighted work to make that advancement possible in the first place.
With these new conversations, the labels are trying out a different, less aggressive tack. If they prevail, it would presumably end the standoff in court. It’s a tricky situation because both processes are still ongoing, “creating a race of sorts to see which AI company and label will strike a deal first,” in Bloomberg‘s words. These partnerships may take a long time to form—if they do at all. The labels are reportedly pushing for more control over their works while the startups want greater flexibility and lower rates. If the deals do go through, they could set a new precedent for how disputes of this sort are handled in the future.
“The music community has embraced AI, and we are already partnering and collaborating with responsible developers to build sustainable AI tools centered on human creativity that put artists and songwriters in charge,” Mitch Glazier, CEO of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), said in a statement in support of the labels’ initial suit. “But we can only succeed if developers are willing to work together with us.”
