Big Record Label Sues AI Company Suno And Udio For Violation Of Mass Copyright

JAKARTA - Three large record labels, Sony Music, Universal Music Group, and Warner Records, sued intelligence companies made by Suno and Udio on Monday, June 24. All three accused the two companies of gross copyright infringement by using footage from the labels to train the music maker's AI system.

According to a federal lawsuit filed against Udio in New York and Suno in Massachusetts, the companies copied music without permission to teach their systems to create music that would "compete directly, demean, and eventually drown" by human artists.

"Our technology is transformative; designed to produce completely new outputs, not to memorize and repeat existing content," said Suno CEO total Shulman, in a statement. Udio spokesperson has not commented on the complaint.

Complaints state that Suno and Udio users can reproduce the elements of songs such as "My Girl" by The Temptations, "All I Want for Christmas Is You" by Mariah Carey, and "I Got You (I Feel Good)" by James Brown, and can produce "distinguishable" vocals from musicians such as Michael Jackson, Bruce Springsteen, and ABBA.

The record label asked the court to provide legal compensation of up to 150,000 US dollars (Rp2.4 billion) per song allegedly copied by the defendant. They accused Suno of copying 662 songs and Udio of 1,670 songs.

This lawsuit is the first to target AI music makers after several cases filed by authors, news outlets, and others regarding alleged abuse of their work to train text-based AI models supporting chatbots such as OpenAI's ChatGPT. AI companies argue that their systems use copyrighted material fairly.

New York-based Suno, Massachusetts, and Udio, have raised millions of funds this year for their AI systems creating music in response to user text requests.

Complaints from the labels said the companies had "deliberately evaded" the material they used to train their technology, and that revealing it would "recognize intentional copyright infringement on an almost inconceivable scale."

"Unlicensed services like Suno and Udio claim to be 'fair' to copy the work of an artist's life and exploit it for their own benefit without permission or payment hinder a truly innovative AI promise for all of us," Mitch Glazier, CEO of the American Recording Industry Association, said in a statement.