Reuters reported that Suno and Udio, a start-up ChatGPT-like intended for music, were sued over mass copyright infringement in training its music-generating AI systems.
Record Labels Filing for Copyright Infringement
The Recording Industry Association of America disclosed on Monday that lawsuits were filed by Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group Recordings, and Warner Records, alleging the two companies of unlawfully copying their recordings to train their systems in creating music that could directly compete with, devalue, and potentially overshadow the work of human artists.
Suno, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Udio, headquartered in New York, have secured substantial funding this year for their AI systems, which generate music based on user text prompts.
According to the lawsuit, elements that were allegedly replicated include songs such as The Temptations' "My Girl," Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas Is You," and James Brown's "I Got You (I Feel Good)." The complaints also stated that the AI systems could generate vocals that are indistinguishable from musicians such as Michael Jackson, Bruce Springsteen, and ABBA.
The lawsuits were filed separately, one in federal court in Boston against Suno AI. In contrast, another was filed in New York against Uncharted Labs, the developer of Udio AI, accused Suno of copying 662 songs and Udio of copying 1,670 songs and requested the courts award statutory damages of up to $150,000 per song allegedly copied by the defendants.
The labels' complaints asserted that the companies have intentionally avoided disclosing the materials utilized to train their technology, implying that revealing this information would indicate significant and deliberate copyright infringement on an unimaginable scale.
A Transformative Technology Claims
Suno CEO Mikey Shulman stated in a statement that their technology is transformative and designed to generate completely new outputs, not to memorize and regurgitate pre-existing content. Spokespeople for Udio did not respond immediately to a request for comment regarding the complaints.
While the music industry collaborates with responsible AI developers, unlicensed services such as Suno and Udio undermine innovation by copying artists' work without consent or compensation, which could hinder the advancement of genuinely innovative AI technologies for everyone, Mitch Glazier, chairman and chief executive of the RIAA stated.
The lawsuit aimed at holding Suno and Udio accountable for copyright infringement represents the first legal action against music-generating AI, following numerous cases brought by authors, news outlets, and others concerning the alleged unauthorized use of their work to train text-based AI models.
The Generative AI Disclosure Act
In April, California Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff introduced the Generative AI Copyright Disclosure Act, which requires AI companies to disclose any copyrighted works used in their training datasets to the Register of Copyrights at least 30 days before launching new generative AI systems capable of creating text, images, music, or video in response to user input or face financial penalties. These datasets typically include extensive content, such as billions of lines of text, images, or millions of hours of music and movies.
The legality of whether major artificial intelligence companies, valued in the billions, have unlawfully used copyrighted works is increasingly becoming a matter of litigation and government oversight. Schiff's bill does not aim to prohibit AI from training on copyrighted material. Instead, it places a significant obligation on companies to disclose the wide range of works they use in developing tools like ChatGPT, which typically involve confidential data.
