Sony sues AI music generator Udio over 30,000 songs, seeking up to $4.5 billion in damages

Here are the 30,000 songs Sony is suing Udio's AI music generator over

Sony Music Entertainment has filed another lawsuit against Udio, accusing the AI music generator of infringing the copyright of more than 30,000 of its songs, ranging from Elvis Presley's Hound Dog to Beyoncé's Say My Name, and Harry Styles' As It Was. The lawsuit, filed in a New York court on Monday, claims that this list represents "only a small portion of Plaintiffs' works that Udio infringed," as reported earlier by Music Business Worldwide. In 2024, Sony, along with Universal Music Group and Warner Records, filed a lawsuit against Udio and the AI music-maker Suno. After gaining access to Udio's training data through discovery, Sony claims it identified additional songs using an "audio fingerprinting" technique. Sony filed a request to add more than 30,000 songs that Udio allegedly "copied and ingested into its generative AI models," but a judge later rejected the company's motion, leaving the scope of the original lawsuit at 333 works. Sony has now made the more than 30,000 songs the subject of its new lawsuit, which the company says it could expand. It claims Udio "admitted that its generative AI models were 'constructed by showing the program a vast amount of different kinds of sound recordings,'" including from YouTube. UMG and Warner Music Group have since settled with Udio and are now partnering with the company as the music industry embraces AI. You can read the full list of songs Sony is suing Udio over in this filing. The company is asking to block Udio from infringing its works, as well as for up to $150,000 per work infringed.

Sony files another lawsuit against AI music generator Udio - Engadget

Universal and Warner, which originally sued Udio with Sony, already struck deals with the music generator. Sony has sued AI music generator Udio again. It's a separate lawsuit from the one it filed in 2024 along with other major music labels, accusing Udio of infringing on copyrighted works on a "massive scale." According to Music Business Worldwide, the new lawsuit involves 30,117 recordings that the AI company allegedly used without permission to train its models. Sony attempted to add the recordings to its original complaint, but the court rejected its request on June 29. However, the court also said in its ruling that "plaintiffs have the right to seek to stop infringement of, and recover damages for, all copyrighted works." Since the court also mentioned at the time that there was no need for the company to expand that particular lawsuit, Sony filed a new one. The Verge has obtained a copy of the songs involved in this case, and they include some very well known tracks from artists like Alicia Keys, Dolly Parton, Elvis Presley, Beyoncé, Bob Dylan, Britney Spears and Michael Jackson. In the new complaint Sony also accused Udio of obtaining audio recordings for training by ripping them from YouTube. Udio previously admitted using audio data from YouTube in order to train its models, but it insisted that the act amounted to fair use. Udio had already struck licensing deals with Universal and Warner after they filed the original complaint. When Warner signed the deal with the AI company, it said the agreement could be a new income stream for artists who opt in. Sony, the only holdout, wrote in its lawsuit the Udio's "belated embrace of licensing only underscores the unlawfulness of its decision to copy [Sony's and other labels'] copyrighted sound recordings, without a license, in the first place." Sony is now demanding a trial by jury and is asking for statutory damages of up to $150,000 per infringed work.

Sony is seeking potential copyright damages of up to $4.5 billion

Sony has launched a new legal offensive against AI music generator Udio, this time over 30,117 allegedly unlicensed recordings used to train its models. The new suit includes tracks by Alicia Keys, Beyoncé, Elvis Presley, and Michael Jackson, among others, and comes after the court rejected Sony's attempt to expand its original lawsuit filed in 2024. Notably, the 2024 lawsuit was filed by Sony, Warner Brothers, and Universal against Uncharted Labs and Suno, the creators of Udio, and Suno, two AI music generators. However, the court rejected Sony's request to add 30,000 new songs it believes Udio unlawfully used to train its AI model on June 29, as it was too close to the end of the discovery phase of the lawsuit. Although Sony was told by the court that it's free to pursue the new 30,000 songs for copyright infringement, just not as part of the case filed in 2024. So, Sony filed a second lawsuit accusing Udio of ripping tracks from YouTube and copying Sony's copyrighted recordings without permission. While Universal and Warner have already struck licensing deals with Udio, Sony remains the lone holdout, arguing that the AI firm's lackluster licensing efforts only highlight the illegality of its initial data harvesting. Udio claims its use of the recordings is protected under fair use. Sony is now seeking a jury trial and up to $150,000 in statutory damages per infringed work. The outcome could set a major precedent for how AI companies are allowed to use copyrighted material for training.