AI Music Generators Sued For Copying Works Of Artists Including Michael Jackson And Chuck Berry
Record labels including Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group, and Warner Records are suing AI song-generators Suno and Udio for ‘mass copyright infringement’.
The lawsuits allege that the music startups are exploiting the works of artists including Chuck Berry, Billie Holiday, and Michael Jackson.
What Does Suno And Udio Do?
Suno and Udio have garnered attention over the last few months for their music-generation capabilities.
The platforms allow users to create complete songs using a single-word prompt, and most recently, they added new updates enabling you to upload your audio to the AI models for personalized music creation.
However, there were concerns about how the models could reproduce sounds and styles accurately.
What Are The Lawsuits Claiming?
On Monday, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) announced the filing of two copyright infringement cases.
“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,” said RIAA Chairman and CEO Mitch Glazier in the press release. “But we can only succeed if developers are willing to work together with us.”
Glazier argues that services like Suno and Udio exploit artists’ work for profit without consent or payment, undermining genuine AI innovation.
The lawsuits seek to declare the illegal use of plaintiffs’ copyrighted music, stop future unauthorized use, and seek compensation for past infringements.
Exploiting Black Artists’ Music
The music labels claim they could independently prompt Suno to create outputs that closely match copyrighted songs by artists like Jason Derulo and ABBA.
For instance, using prompts like “1950s rock and roll” and snippets of Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode” lyrics, they generated a song nearly replicating Berry’s chorus.
Similarly, using a prompt describing Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean,” Suno produced an output resembling Jackson’s melody and lyrics. The labels argue this overlap indicates Suno trained on copyrighted material.
“Real music comes from real life and real people,” said Willie ‘Prophet’ Stiggers, Black Music Action Coalition Co-Founder, President and CEO.
“I urge the courts to recognize that ‘training’ AI on copyrighted music requires permission. It is vital that artists and songwriters are in charge of their own work, story, and message.”
According to Wired, Suno CEO Mikey Shulman stated that their technology is transformative and designed to generate new outputs, not memorize and regurgitate pre-existing content.
“We would have been happy to explain this to the corporate record labels that filed this lawsuit (and in fact, we tried to do so), but instead of entertaining a good faith discussion, they’ve reverted to their old lawyer-led playbook.”
Image Credit: David Baltzer
