Record labels Sony, Warner and UMG sue AI music generators Suno and Udio

“Unlicensed services like Suno and Udio, which claim it is ‘right’ to copy an artist’s life’s work and exploit it for their own gain without consent or compensation, undermine the promise of truly innovative AI for all of us,” said Mitch Glazier, CEO of the Recording Industry Association of America, the industry group of which Sony, UMG and Warner are all members.

Generative AI tools such as chatbots, image generators, and song generators are built by ingesting massive amounts of human-created content. The record labels claim that Suno and Udio used songs they did not have the rights to when they trained their AI algorithms. Spokespeople for Udio and Suno did not respond to requests for comment.

As interest in AI has exploded over the past year, authors, artists, graphic designers, musicians and journalists have begun to push back against the industry’s use of their work to train its technology. Lawsuits have been filed against AI companies such as OpenAI by authors, comedians and newspapers.

AI leaders generally argue that using books, news articles, and artwork to train AI falls under “fair use,” a concept in copyright law which allows the reuse of copyrighted content if it is substantially modified. But many creators disagree, saying their work is being stolen to form tools that could be used to replace them.

Suno and Udio allow users to generate complete songs by entering a description that can include the desired genre, lyrics, and types of instruments used. Suno blocks requests asking it to generate a song imitating a specific artist. Asking it to create a song “in the style of Dolly Parton” results in an error message stating that it is not possible to generate something with a prompt mentioning the name of an artist, according to tests carried out by the Washington Post. Udio doesn’t seem to have the same restriction, easily generating a mournful country song with lyrics sung by a voice that sounds like Parton’s when given. the same prompt.

Some musicians have called for new laws specifically protecting their image or the style of their music. In Tennessee, home of Nashville’s music industry, lawmakers updated an old law earlier this year to specifically prohibit imitating a musician’s voice without their permission. A bipartisan group of federal senators proposed similar national legislation last year.