If you’ve spent any time on social media or the internet at large in recent years, you’ll no doubt have noticed an uptick in AI generated or assisted content. From images, to writing, to even a few videos, it seems that AI is becoming more and more of a mainstay in our popular culture. But as AI gains relevancy, concerns over its irresponsible use grow. Many creatives worry that AI models will have a negative effect on their respective industries. One of many concerns is that AI steals and subsequently profits off of the work of others.
It’s no wonder then that some major music conglomerates are taking legal action against AI companies for potentially infringing on their IP. In this article, we'll be doing a full breakdown on the legal battle between big record labels and AI companies, taking a look at both sides of the argument and hopefully coming away with a better understanding of the tenuous relationship between AI and IP.
Before jumping into the legal case, we first need to understand how AI models work, which should immediately make it apparent why legal and ethical questions are being brought up.
Like humans, AI models need to be trained before they can produce anything of note. This training is done by feeding an AI model large amounts of data. This data could be anything from a particular artist’s paintings, an author’s books, or a certain genre of music, it all depends on what you’re trying to emulate. With this data, the AI uses machine learning to memorize the patterns within the work and then makes decisions based on that. Those decisions culminate in an output of new images, writing, or music.
You may be beginning to see the issue. AI is inherently reliant on the previous work of human artists. This begs the question: who deserves the credit or monetary gain from AI generated content? Shouldn't the original artists or owners have a say in how their content is used? Is it even legal for AI to draw from other people’s intellectual property? All these questions are being asked as AI becomes more ubiquitous and regulations around it are still being formulated.
Already, AI is making an impact in the music industry, for better or worse. On one hand, some producers have found success integrating AI into their workflow. It can make the more tedious parts of their job go much quicker. We even made a guide on how AI can be used as a tool in music production.
Besides music production, AI has a big part to play in people’s listening experiences on streaming platforms, as AI algorithms recommend new songs based on a listener's tastes. This can grant exposure to new or unknown artists that one wouldn’t have encountered otherwise.
But AI isn’t without negatives. Already artists are taking umbrage with the use of AI. “It’s a shit of a song,” said Puerto Rican rapper Bad Bunny in response to an AI creation that mimicked his own voice as well as the voices of Justin Bieber and Daddy Yankee. At the same time, millions of people liked the song on social media, and there are other examples of AI generated songs getting a big buzz by mimicking popular artists. Consumers seem more ready to accept AI music whereas artists are skeptical and concerned about what it could mean for their profession.
With a general outline of how AI works in mind, let’s introduce the two main players in the AI music space: Suno and Udio. Both are platforms where users can create their own music with the help of artificial intelligence.
Each platform has its own method and features, but the general process is the same. Users input a prompt plus whatever extra details they have in mind for a song. Then the AI generates music based on that prompt, drawing on the data it's been trained with along the way. The main difference between the two is that Suno generates an entire 2 minute song all at once whereas Udio works in 30 second increments.
These tools allow users to easily create music even without any formal training, you’ll find a number of these generated songs on their homepages. But while many have enjoyed using these platforms, music companies have had an altogether different reaction.
With the workings of Suno and Udio in mind, we can better understand where major record labels are coming from. Sony Music, Warner Music Group and Universal Music Group, three companies that account for a majority of music sold worldwide, are filing a lawsuit against the AI companies Suno and Udio over copyright infringement. Their lawyers allege that Suno and Udio unlawfully used copyrighted music to train their AI, which will “saturate the market with machine-generated content that will directly compete with, cheapen and ultimately drown out the genuine sound recordings on which [the services were] built.”
Here are some more details from their lawyers and the lawsuit documents explaining the issue of AI:
“Building and operating [these services] requires at the outset copying and ingesting massive amounts of data to ‘train’ a software ‘model’ to generate outputs.”
“For [these services], this process involved copying decades worth of the world’s most popular sound recordings and then ingesting those copies [to] generate outputs that imitate the qualities of genuine human sound recordings.”
“Since the day it launched, Udio has flouted the rights of copyright owners in the music industry as part of a mad dash to become the dominant AI music generation service.”
“Neither Udio, nor any other generative AI company, can be allowed to advance toward this goal by trampling the rights of copyright owners.”
The overall goal of these lawsuits is to bar Suno and Udio from training their AI with copyrighted material and get them to pay damages for the infringements they’ve already committed.
At the moment, the lawsuit only cites circumstantial evidence against the AI companies, based on generated music that bears a resemblance to certain copyrighted work. This includes (but is not limited to) voices that sound similar to that of Michael Jackson, the producer tag of one Jason Derulo, and music that sounds identical to Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas Is You.”
Despite the size and influence of the record labels, the upstart AI companies aren’t going down without a fight. They’ve enlisted the help of an elite law firm, Latham & Wilkins, in an effort to combat the trio of record labels’ attack. Latham & Wilkins is known for their work defending other artificial intelligence companies such as Anthropic and OpenAI in similar legal battles with big companies.
While exact details about the defense’s case aren’t available, we can look at past arguments for the efficacy and legality of AI to get a sense for how they might approach the case. AI companies often contend that their use of copyrighted materials for AI training falls under fair use laws, which allows people to legally reuse protected work. If you’ve ever seen a parody of a tv show or movie, it’s likely fair use laws that allow that work to exist.
It’s too early to tell who will come out as the victor in this conflict. And it could take years for the courts to decide. But regardless of the outcome, there is no doubt that it will have a profound effect on AI’s place in the music industry.
