The Drake, Kendrick drama continues, this time in the form of big tech, music labels, lawsuits and artificial intelligence. A group of major record labels, represented by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), is suing two AI startups, Suno and Uncharted Labs (developer of Udio), for allegedly using copyrighted music without permission to train their AI systems.
The RIAA, acting on behalf of labels such as Sony Music Entertainment, UMG Recordings, and Warner Records, has filed copyright infringement lawsuits against Suno and Uncharted Labs. The lawsuits claim that these companies used unlicensed sound recordings to train their AI models.
So what exactly is Udio? Founded by former Google DeepMind researchers, Udio, is known for creating “BBL Drizzy,” an AI-generated song that went viral during a dispute between Kendrick Lamar and Drake. Udio aims to make it “easy for anyone to create emotionally resonant music in an instant” and raised $10 million in funding in April. Suno, which enables users to create songs with simple prompts and relies on OpenAI’s ChatGPT for lyrics, raised $125 million last month.
Get this, RIAA CEO Mitch Glazier stated that the lawsuits are “necessary to reinforce the most basic rules of the road for the responsible, ethical, and lawful development of generative AI systems and to bring Suno’s and Udio’s blatant infringement to an end.” He emphasized that while the music community is collaborating with responsible developers, unlicensed services exploit artists’ work without consent or compensation.
Back in April, over 200 artists, including Billie Eilish, Kacey Musgraves, and Jon Bon Jovi, signed an open letter organized by the Artist Rights Alliance, urging AI developers to stop using AI to infringe upon and devalue the rights of human artists.
For all you legal eagle junkies, the lawsuit against Udio notes that “if developed with the permission and participation of copyright owners, generative AI tools will be able to assist humans in creating and producing new and innovative music.” However, it warns that irresponsible development without respect for copyright protections could harm artists, labels, and the music industry, reducing the quality of new music and diminishing cultural value.
The lawsuit against Suno claims that the platform has over 10 million users generating music files, resulting in about 2 million streams. These files compete with copyrighted recordings without giving credit or compensation to the original artists.
Udio and Suno have not yet responded to requests for comment from media outlets that reported this story.
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