Leading recording companies, including Sony, Warner Brothers, and Universal, filed forensic claims against two startups in the field of artificial intelligence – Uncharted Labs and Suno. The reason for the claims is the alleged use of musical works protected by copyright for training AI models without proper permission.
Judicial claims were filed in New York and Massachusetts under the coordination of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Uncharted Labs, founded by former Google DeepMind employees, is working on a UDIO platform, while Suno is collaborating with Microsoft to incorporate music creation functions in Copilot.
The main accusation is that both companies utilized copyrighted music to train their neural networks without acquiring the necessary licenses. Record labels claim they have evidence, as AI models are reproducing segments very similar to original works.
The situation is further complicated by the fact that both companies charge users a fee for producing music based on text prompts. Music labels provide examples of requests that prompt AI to generate music that is nearly identical to popular songs such as “Johnny B. Goode,” “American Idiot,” and “Rock Around the Clock.”
Recording companies are seeking acknowledgment of copyright infringements, the shutdown of the AI services, payment of legal fees, and a penalty of $150,000 for each infringed work. Determining the exact number of violations is challenging due to the lack of documentation on training materials, resulting in the lawsuit not specifying the total amount of damages. However, based on the documents accompanying the Suno complaint reviewed by The Register, even the minimum calculated amount could be substantial. The complaint identifies at least 12 songs allegedly replicated by UDIO, amounting to $1.8 million in fines. Moreover, there are 662 different compositions listed under the “controversial sound recordings” section. If violations of all these works are proven, the total penalty could amount to $99.3 million. Such significant financial sanctions could heavily impact the operations of these AI startups, potentially leading to their closure.
In an attempt to defend their position, Uncharted and Suno made a critical error. Initially, they vaguely described the data sources used to train their AI models as “publicly available.” This vague description raised suspicion among music labels, as if the materials were truly in the public domain, the startups could have explicitly stated so.