The biggest U.S. record labels are suing two artificial intelligence startups, marking a major step in the music industry’s battle to prevent its unlicensed intellectual property from being used to train generative AI models.
The Recording Industry Association of America filed two lawsuits on Monday against Suno AI and Uncharted Labs, which makes Udio AI, on behalf of Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, and Warner Music Group.
The AI startups operate by using text prompts to create songs in seconds. But in order to develop those songs, the AI software has to be fed existing music in order to pick up on what sounds good. For example, Udio powered the viral “BBL Drizzy” song.
The complaints follow a flurry of similar lawsuits filed by artists, newspaper publishers, comedians, and authors that allege artificial intelligence companies are infringing on their registered copyrights.
“The music community has embraced AI and we are already partnering and collaborating with responsible developers to build sustainable AI tools centered on human creativity that put artists and songwriters in charge,” said RIAA Chairman and CEO Mitch Glazier in a statement. “But we can only succeed if developers are willing to work together with us. Unlicensed services like Suno and Udio that claim it’s ‘fair’ to copy an artist’s life’s work and exploit it for their own profit without consent or pay set back the promise of genuinely innovative AI for us all.”
In both cases, the group is seeking declarations that the two AI companies infringed the plaintiffs’ copyrighted sound recordings, injunctions barring the services from using the copyrighted recordings in the future, and damages for the infringements that have already occurred. Those damages could be as much as $150,000 “per work infringed,” according to Bloomberg, which could potentially equate to billions of dollars.
The case against Suno was filed in Massachusetts, and the case against Uncharted Labs was filed in the Southern District of New York.
“AI companies, like all other enterprises, must abide by the laws that protect human creativity and ingenuity,” both complaints state. “There is nothing that exempts AI technology from copyright law or that excuses AI companies from playing by the rules.”
Fast Company has reached out to Suno and Uncharted Labs for comment.