World's largest music labels team up to wage war against AI music generators

Two AI startups, one founded by former Google DeepMind employees and the other in partnership with Microsoft for integration into its Copilot AI, are being sued by some of the biggest record labels in the music industry.

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The lawsuit has been organized by the Recording Industry Association of America, Sony, Warner Brothers, Universal, and others and has been filed against Uncharted Labs and Suno, the creators of Udio, and Suno, two AI music generators. Notably, Uncharted Labs was founded by former Google DeepMind employees, while Suno has been engaging in a partnership with Microsoft to integrate its AI music generation software into Copilot.

In what appears to be an exponentially growing number of AI-based lawsuits, the record labels are all claiming the companies behind the AI music generators stole copyrighted music to train their AIs. This isn't the first time copyright claims have been thrown against an AI company, as the New York Times filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, the creators of ChatGPT, for allegedly using the Times' articles without its permission.

The record labels and the Times, along with many other varieties of people in various professions, such as artists battling AI image generators, believe AI generators trained on content taken from people without their permission is copyright infringement. Record labels are seeking Udio and Suno to take down their AI generation services, admit to copyright infringement, pay all legal fees, and pay $150,000 for every infringed work.

Quantifying the total number of AI-generated songs that used copyrighted materials to be generated may be extremely difficult and, if achieved, could cost Udio and Suno an exorbitant amount of money.