The music industry has officially declared war on Suno and Udio, two of the most prominent AI music generators. A group of music labels including Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group, and Sony Music Group has filed lawsuits in US federal court on Monday morning alleging copyright infringement on a “massive scale.”
The plaintiffs seek damages up to $150,000 per work infringed. The lawsuit against Suno is filed in Massachusetts, while the case against Udio’s parent company Uncharted Inc. was filed in New York. Suno and Udio did not immediately respond to a request to comment.
“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,” Recording Industry Association of America chair and CEO Mitch Glazier said in a press release.
Jesus Christ. Have people never heard of covers? Every song here is in some way or another akin to a published cover of another song. Pretty bad ones at that. Obviously if it were matching the songs one for one, then it would be considered copywrite enforceable but realistically these would be more along the lines of copywrite abuse. The music labels would absolutely love for this precedent to be set so that anything even that remotely resembles anything ever made will allow them to own new independent artists within established genres.
The cases
Here is a list of cases that set precedent. The thing that connects them all and makes them relevant is that the defendant was either successful, made a lot of money, was very popular or it was the label attacking a artist for sounding like themself after leaving the band. See John Fogerty v. John Fogerty
Actually technically covers require royalties, whether they’re on a CD, or performed at someplace seedy.
They’re not the time honored tradition you think they are.