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Sony, Universal Music Group (UMG), and Warner Music Group are eyeing licensing and equity deals to settle a copyright infringement lawsuit against two AI music startups, Suno and Udio, Bloomberg reports.
The lawsuit was filed last year by the Record Industry Association of America (RIAA) on behalf of the industry’s “Big Three.” It claims that Suno and Udio, platforms that allow users to generate music, lyrics, and vocals from text prompts, trained their AI models on unlicensed music and that their outputs resemble popular songs created by human artists.
“Because of their sheer popularity and exposure, the Copyrighted Recordings had to be included within Suno’s training data for Suno’s model to be successful at creating the desired human-sounding outputs,” the lawsuit said.
RIAA initially wanted $150,000 per infringing song, but now, sources tell Bloomberg that the record labels will settle if the AI music startups agree to pay a licensing fee, share equity, and compensate artists.
The report adds that both parties prefer a settlement over a court battle, but the final terms have yet to be finalized. Record labels are fighting for greater control over their songs, while AI startups want more flexibility in AI training and a reduced licensing fee.
As things stand, the music industry isn’t entirely against AI-generated songs. Conversely, it appears that they are seeking a fee every time an AI startup uses their songs to train AI models or generate music.
“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,” RIAA’s CEO Mitch Glazier said last year. “But we can only succeed if developers are willing to work together with us.”
Notably, UMG extended its licensing deal with Meta last year. In addition to a licensing fee, the deal included fair compensation for artists in exchange for letting users on Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, Horizon, Threads, and WhatsApp use their songs on social media posts.
Last year, YouTube was also reportedly in talks with Sony, Warner, and Universal for a deal that would allow the Google-owned company to use copyrighted music for AI training.