AI generated music became an issue to the big music companies. The Recording Industry Association of America, including major labels as Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group Recordings, Warner Records, and others, are suing the music generating AI companies Suno and Udio for copyright infringement. The mentioned companies are accused for using popular songs for testing their technology, which is why the music industry seeks compensation of $150,000 for copyright exploitation.
Mitch Glazier, CEO of Recording Industry Association of America, explained the negative impact of AI industry in his column for Billboard:
“At the top of the list of irresponsible developers are two music generation services, Suno and Udio, who claim to offer the ability to generate “new” music based on simple text prompts – a feat that’s only possible because these models have copied and exploited human-created music on a mass scale without authorization. Both have clearly chosen the low road of secretive, unconsented scraping and exploitation of copyrighted creative works instead of the high road of licensing and partnership”, claimed Glazier, and added that they have filed the lawsuits against the mentioned AI companies in federal courts in Boston and New York City.
Both Suno and Udio are relatively new companies on the market, start-ups founded approximately a year ago. Suno has officially partnered with Microsoft, and a month ago announced a $125 million funding round — marking the largest investment ever in a music AI startup. Their CEO, Mikey Shulman, claimed that Suno was designed to generate completely new outputs, not to memorise and regurgitate pre-existing content and does not allow users to reference specific artists.
Even though Glazier warned about the copyrights infringement and warned about the technologies that are not respectful to music industry, he invited AI generating music companies to collaborate and create future together. “Generative AI has extraordinary promise. But realizing it will take collaboration, partnership, and genuine respect for human creativity. It’s time for AI companies to choose – go nowhere alone or explore a rich, amazing future together”, wrote the chairman of the Recording Industry Association.
