Universal Music Group, Sony Music, and Warner Music have accused Suno of training AI models with copyrighted sounds and songs in the creation of new songs without permission. Their accusation is similar to the ones media companies, including The New York Times and local news brands, are bringing against Microsoft and OpenAI in lawsuits.
"What the major record labels really don't want is competition," Suno said in a court document filed today.
Content creators are trying to live with — and protect their businesses from — new generative AI ventures that require training on existing works. Indeed, there are already licensing arrangements between OpenAI and companies like Time, Vox Media, and News Corp. for using archives to train large language models. At the same time, Meta, owner of Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp, has AI tools that make it possible for influencers to clone themselves and their ways of communicating across the internet.
Suno concedes that its model was trained with data scraped from the open internet, including copyrighted content owned by major record labels, but the company's CEO and co-founder, Mikey Shulman, writes in a blog post published in coordination with the filing, such a practice is more on par with "a kid writing their own rock songs after listening to the genre," or a teacher or journalist reviewing materials to draw insights. "Learning is not infringing. It never has been, and it is not now."
Similar defenses have been raised by Udio, a similar music software start-up, which is facing lawsuits from the music industry.
The Overarching View
The recording industry has faced technology-driven disruptions before—the first being when Napster and digital file formats changed dramatically the way business was done. With lessons from that era in mind, Shulman mentioned how Suno had already been working on "productive discussions" with major record labels to grow "the pie for music together." He said that whether due to over-eager lawyers or as a strategic move to get leverage for commercial discussions, the lawsuit is an unnecessary obstacle to a bigger and more valuable future for music.
The Contrasting Stance
A Recording Industry Association of America spokesperson responded, "The defendants have finally admitted their massive unlicensed copying of artists' recordings. It's a major concession of facts they spent months trying to hide and acknowledged only when forced by a lawsuit."
A Silver Lining
On a brighter note, the music business is going through its best performance in terms of revenue generated through music streaming, and streaming drives financial peaks for the music industry. The ease and convenience of streaming services surge music consumption worldwide, which generates the most significant revenues the music business has ever seen. This boom underlines the strength and the adaptiveness of the music business when it comes to surviving and thriving amid technological changes.
This very successful landscape also offers special opportunities to an investor. Royalty Exchange is where one can invest in music royalties, and therefore, it is a potential way through which one can take advantage of the growth of the music industry. Sign up now and get access to live listings to become part of this dynamic music market. This represents an incredible opportunity for investing in the future of music.
