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The world's largest record labels sued the two artificial intelligence music services Suno and Udio on Monday for copyright infringement on "an almost unimaginable scale." The case could have major implications for how artificial intelligence companies must deal with protected music.
/ 28/06/2024 / Willy MartinsenThe interest group for the American recording industry, RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America), sued two of the services that have received the most attention in the field of AI generation of music, Udio and Suno, on Monday this week. The lawsuit was first reported by Billboard.
The plaintiffs allege in their lawsuit that Suno and Udio have illegally copied the music they own the rights to, and that the copies have been used to train their AI models to create new music. They also say that the music could “saturate the market with machine-generated content that will directly compete with, devalue, and ultimately drown out the genuine audio recordings on which the services are built” (TONO’s translation). The plaintiffs now want both to stop the services from continuing to use the copyrighted music, and at the same time demand compensation for the damage already done based on the copyright infringements.
The RIAA press release about the lawsuit.
TONO has repeatedly spoken publicly in the media and in submissions to the authorities over the past year, both in connection with the digitalization strategy and in the consultation response to the changes to the Copyright Act that there is a pressing need to regulate artificial intelligence, both in Norway and internationally. TONO is also involved in international work in this context through organizations such as CISAC and Gesac.
When the government announced last year that it was dedicating 1 billion kroner to research into artificial intelligence, CEO Karl Vestli stated on the matter that
– AI companies train their models on copyrighted music and text without asking permission or paying for the use of others' intellectual property. As of now, the creators also have no good way to reserve themselves against training AI. (…) There are also many copyright questions related to AI-generated content that are currently either unanswered or where existing answers are not good enough.
TONO conducted a member survey this spring, where we also asked about attitudes towards artificial intelligence. 2252 of the members participated. Here, 38 percent stated that they see artificial intelligence as a threat to their music creation, 27 percent had not taken a clear position, while 29 percent stated that they do not see AI as a threat to their music creation.
Furthermore, 51 percent were negative about using artificial intelligence in their music creation, while 19 percent responded that they are positive.
Services like Suno and Udio also allow people without any music-making expertise to make music. 2 out of 10 TONO members said they are positive about AI tools enabling more people to make music, while 5 out of 10 were negative or very negative about this.
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"Concerned about the right to fair remuneration" (March 20, 2024)
The EU has adopted AI law (March 20, 2024)
"Closer AI law in the EU" (February 5, 2024)
"New EU laws for music streaming coming soon" (January 18, 2024)
"Copyright and transparency part of the work on the new AI Act"
"CISAC president Björn Ulvaeus demands AI transparency" (December 1, 2023)
"Copyright must be central to the government's research efforts in AI" (September 7, 2023)
"Desperate need for AI regulation" (August 29, 2023)
"Artists' organizations from around the world launch 7 principles for AI" (August 29, 2023)