AI music companies Suno and Udio have hired law firm Latham & Watkins to defend them against lawsuits from three titans of the music business – Sony Music, Warner Music, and Universal Music Group.
The labels allege Suno and Udio unlawfully copied their sound recordings to train models to produce AI-generated content. Machine-generated music, the labels contend, saturate the market and “cheapen and ultimately drown out the genuine sound recordings on which [the services were] built.”
The label’s lawsuit posits circumstantial evidence to support the belief that copyrighted material had been used to produce AI-generated music. Suno and Udio has published music with voices that sound just like Bruce Springsteen, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Michael Jackson and ABBA and melodies that mirror copyrighted songs like “Dancing Queen,” “My Girl,” “American Idiot” and more.
The common argument for AI companies in cases like this is that training models are protected under the fair use doctrine. Lathan & Watkins used this argument to defend AI company Anthropic in a copyright suit from UMG, Concord Music Group, and ABKCO last October.
Suno and Udio declined to comment on whether or not they have used unlicensed copyrights in their datasets.
Alex Reynolds serves as Barrett Media’s Digital Director. In this role, he oversees all social media scheduling and content creation, monitoring of the brands analytics, and contributes to the brand’s newsletters, conferences, and websites. Originally from Rockville, Maryland, Alex is a passionate lacrosse fan, and graduate of Elon University. He can be found on Twitter @Reynolds14_.
