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Sony and Universal Sue Suno Again Over AI Model
Developing
In Short: Universal Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment have filed a second lawsuit against Suno, alleging the company's latest AI model, v6, infringes on their copyrighted works.
Universal Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment have filed a second lawsuit against Suno, alleging the company's latest AI model, v6, infringes on their copyrighted works. The joint complaint, filed on Friday (September 18) in Boston federal court, accuses Suno of copying 60,202 of the labels' sound recordings without a license.
The complaint's central new allegation concerns v6, which Suno launched on September 9. The labels argue that v6 was built on the output of models trained on their recordings, even though Suno claims it was trained from scratch.
Chief Product Officer Jack Brody told MBW at launch that v6 was trained entirely from scratch, on data that “doesn’t include data from Universal or Sony.” However, the labels argue that this does not wipe out Suno’s liability.
The labels claim that training a ‘new’ model on the outputs of an infringing model does not eliminate the infringement; it launders it, passing the value of Plaintiffs’ expression from the copied recordings into the tainted models, from those models into their outputs, and from those outputs into v6.
The lawsuit comes more than two years after the labels, together with Warner Music Group, sued Suno over allegedly training its AI models on the companies’ tracks without permission. Since then, WMG, BMG, and Believe have signed deals with Suno to license their content.
The labels claimed in the new suit that these deals reflect an admission by Suno that a market exists for licensing labels’ work, even as the company claims in court its training of its initial models adhered to the “fair use” doctrine.
The labels have asked the court to declare that Suno infringed upon their works, award them statutory damages, and force Suno to pay their attorneys’ fees. They are also seeking a court order stopping Suno from any further use of their recordings and have demanded a jury trial.
Suno says v6 was built in partnership with Warner Music Group, BMG, and Believe. However, the labels claim that v6 remains in violation of their copyrighted works because it is a product of those tainted models and of the unauthorized copies of Plaintiffs’ recordings that Suno retains and continues to use.
What this adds
The new filing against Suno, obtained by MBW, can be read in full here.
The harm Suno is causing goes far beyond these immediate economic consequences, according to the complaint.
Suno has never said it destroyed the recordings it copied, according to the filing.
Background
The two largest music labels argue Suno's latest AI model still infringes on their copyrighted works.
Suno, a company recently valued at $5.4 billion, has launched v6, its latest AI music model, in partnership with major music labels.
What's confirmed
- Universal Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment have sued Suno for a second time.
What's still developing
- The new filing against Suno, obtained by MBW, can be read in full here.
- “The harm Suno is causing goes far beyond these immediate economic consequences,” the complaint said.