Music AI Startups Suno And Udio Criticize Universal, Warner And Sony In US Courts For Stifling Competition

Music AI Startups Suno And Udio Criticize Universal, Warner And Sony In US Courts For Stifling Competition

This year, the two raised millions in funding for their AI systems, which create music in response to user text prompts

Responding to the copyright lawsuits filed by music labels Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group and Sony Music over their music-generating Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems, AI startups Suno and Udio have stated that the use of copyrighted sound recordings to train their systems qualifies as fair use under the Copyright Law of the US.

In the UMG Recordings Inc v. Suno Inc in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, and UMG Recordings Inc v. Uncharted Labs Inc d/b/a Udio.com in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, the AI startups maintained that the lawsuits attempted to stifle independent competition.

Suno remarked, “Where we see musicians, teachers, and common people using a new tool to create original music, the labels see a threat to their market share.”

A spokesperson for the Recording Industry Association of America stated, "There's nothing fair about stealing an artist's life's work, extracting its core value, and repackaging it to compete directly with the originals.”

To this, Sumo responded that the lawsuit was "fundamentally flawed on both the facts and the law."

The Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Suno and New York-based Udio raised millions in funding this year for their AI systems, which create music in response to user text prompts.

A few months ago, the labels sued the startups alleging they copied hundreds of songs from some of the world's most popular musicians to teach their systems to create music that would "directly compete with, cheapen, and ultimately drown out" human artists.

These were the first lawsuits targeting music AI following several cases brought by authors, news outlets and others over the alleged misuse of their work to train models powering chatbots like OpenAI's ChatGPT.

The AI companies argued that their systems used copyrighted material justly. Fair use promotes freedom of expression by allowing the unauthorized use of copyright-protected works under certain circumstances, with courts often focusing on its transformative use.

Udio mentioned, “We have used existing sound recordings as data to mine and analyze for the purpose of identifying patterns in the sounds of various musical styles to enable people to make their new creations - a quintessential fair use.”

The startups also called the labels' protests a "familiar refrain from incumbents in the music industry." It cited the past concerns about vinyl records, synthesizers and drum machines replacing human musicians.

Moez Kaba and Robert Klieger of Hueston Hennigan and Jonathan King of Cowan Liebowitz & Latman represented the record labels

Andy Gass, Britt Lovejoy, Steven Feldman and Sy Damle of Latham & Watkins appeared for Suno and Udio: