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Several weeks after being targeted with copyright infringement lawsuits, AI music startups Suno and Udio have now accused the record labels that filed them of attempting to stifle competition within the music industry. Both companies admitted to training their music-generating AI models on copyrighted materials in separate<\/a> legal filings<\/a>, arguing that doing so is lawful under fair-use doctrine.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The lawsuits against Suno and Udio<\/a> were raised in June by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), a group representing major record labels like Universal Music Group (UMG), Sony Music Entertainment, and Warner Records. Both cases accuse Suno and Udio of committing \u201ccopyright infringement involving unlicensed copying of sound recordings<\/a> on a massive scale.\u201d The RIAA is seeking damages of up to $150,000 for every work infringed.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Udio\u2019s and Suno\u2019s AI music generation tools allow users to produce songs by typing in written descriptions. According to the RIAA, some of these tracks contain vocals that sound identical to those by famous artists like Bruce Springsteen, Michael Jackson, and ABBA. In May, Suno said<\/a> that its music generator had been used 12 million times since it was rolled out in December 2023. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n In their responses, both Suno and Udio say the lawsuits highlight the music industry\u2019s opposition to competition. \u201cHelping people generate new artistic expression is what copyright law is designed to encourage, not prohibit,\u201d Udio wrote in its filing. \u201cUnder longstanding doctrine, what Udio has done \u2014 use existing sound recordings as data to mine and analyze for the purpose of identifying patterns in the sounds of various musical styles, all to enable people to make their own new creations \u2014 is a quintessential \u2018fair use\u2019 under copyright law.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n In a blog post<\/a> accompanying its own filing, Suno said that major record labels had misconceptions about how its AI music tools work, likening its model training to \u201ca kid learning to write new rock songs by listening religiously to rock music\u201d as opposed to just copying and repeating copyrighted tracks. Suno also admitted to training its model on online music, noting that other AI providers like OpenAI, Google, and Apple also source their training data from the open internet.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cLearning is not infringing. It never has been, and it is not now.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cMuch of the open internet indeed contains copyrighted materials, and some of it is owned by major record labels,\u201d Suno said in the blog. \u201dLearning is not infringing. It never has been, and it is not now.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n In a statement to Music Ally<\/a> responding to Suno\u2019s and Udio\u2019s filings, the RIAA said that the companies failed to obtain appropriate consent to use copyrighted works before bringing their tools to market, unlike competing services like YouTube<\/a>. \u201cThere\u2019s nothing fair about stealing an artist\u2019s life\u2019s work, extracting its core value, and repackaging it to compete directly with the originals,\u201d said the RIAA. \u201cTheir vision of the \u2018future of music\u2019 is apparently one in which fans will no longer enjoy music by their favorite artists because those artists can no longer earn a living.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n