Owners of massive music catalogs are taking a stance against AI companies using their property without consent. Sony Music Entertainment and a group of record labels are pursuing copyright litigation against two artificial intelligence startups whose tools allow users to create music in just a few clicks.
On Monday, June 24, 2024, the group of Plaintiffs filed two lawsuits, one in Massachusetts federal court and another in New York federal court. The Massachusetts case named Suno Inc. as a defendant, and the New York case named Uncharted Labs Inc., which does business as Udio.com. Plaintiffs are claiming that the AI companies developed AI machines that allow users to generate digital music files that sound like actual human sound recordings extremely quickly with minimal human input. The Plaintiffs are alleging the AI companies copied their music and used them to train their AI models.
Plaintiffs are seeking multiple remedies, including a request for a finding of willful infringement and $150,000 in statutory damages for each song that was copied.
In response to the lawsuit, CEO of defendant Suno Inc. has stated that his company is “transformative” and that their goal is “to generate completely new outputs.”
Chief Executive Officer of the Recording Industry Association of America recently said in a statement “The music community has embraced AI, and we are already partnering and collaborating with responsible developers… but we can only succeed if developers are willing to work together with us.” In essence, the RIAA is advocating for “ethical” use of sound recordings by AI companies through the payment of licensing fees. Unfortunately, these cases were necessitated by the unethical use of intellectual property by some AI companies. Only these lawsuits can stop the wholesale infringement of copyrighted works.
The Plaintiffs are represented by Moez M. Kaba, Mariah N. Rivera, Alexander R. Perry and Robert N. Klieger of Hueston Hennigan LLP. They are additionally represented by Daniel J. Cloherty of Cloherty & Cloherty & Steinberg LLP in the Massachusetts case and by Jonathan Z. King of Cowan Liebowitz & Latman PC in the New York case.
The cases are UMG Recordings, Inc. et al. v. Suno Inc. et al., case number 1:24-cv-11611, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts and UMG Recordings Inc. et al. v. Uncharted Labs Inc., d/b/a Udio.com et al., case number 1:24-cv-04777, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
* Lowe & Associates (“The Firm”) is a boutique entertainment and business law firm located in Beverly Hills, California. The firm has extensive experience handling cases involving copyright law, having provided top-quality legal services to its clients since 1991. The Firm is recognized for its many achievements, including successfully litigating many high-profile cases.
