AI music firms Suno and Udio have issued their first responses to the lawsuits filed against them by major record labels, asserting that their use of ed songs to train their artificial intelligence models falls under the fair use doctrine. In legal filings submitted on Thursday, both companies acknowledged using proprietary materials to develop their AI technology. Suno openly admitted to ingesting a vast collection of music files available on the open Internet, while Udio argued that their use of existing sound recordings to identify patterns in musical styles was a quintessential example of fair use.
Represented by the law firm Latham & Watkins, Suno and Udio went beyond the usual “answer” to a lawsuit, providing extended introductions that aimed to shape the narrative of the impending legal battle. They accused the major record labels, which include Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group, and Sony Music Entertainment, of dominating the music industry and exploiting intellectual property laws to stifle competition. Suno stated that the labels perceive a threat to their market share, while Udio emphasized that their AI technology empowers musicians, teachers, and individuals to create original music.
Suno and Udio have emerged as significant players in the field of AI-generated music. Udio’s track “BBL Drizzy,” initially a parody, gained popularity through a remix by renowned producer Metro Boomin and was later sampled by Drake himself. Suno, on the other hand, has secured $125 million in funding to develop a music-focused AI model.
The major record labels filed lawsuits against both companies in June, alleging that they had unlawfully used ed music on a massive scale to train their AI models. These lawsuits, along with similar ones from other creative industries, raise a crucial legal question: Is it copyright infringement to utilize proprietary works to build an AI model that generates new creations? Suno and Udio firmly argue that their use of existing music falls within fair use, comparing their AI machines to human musicians who learn from earlier songs to create entirely new works in established styles.
The AI firms contend that the lawsuits are an abuse of intellectual property rights, as the labels seek to claim improper ownership over entire genres of music. Suno and Udio assert that the cases will ultimately revolve around the new songs created by their AI models rather than the inputs used for training. While the labels claim that the inputs were copied illegally, the AI firms maintain that the outputs are original and non-infringing. They argue that making copies of protected works as part of a back-end technological process, invisible to the public, is fair use under the law.