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Universal Music and Sony Music are dramatically expanding their litigation against AI music giant Suno, claiming over 61,000 copyright infringements.
Just moments after Sony Music Entertainment expanded its lawsuit against AI music company Udio, Sony and Universal Music Group dramatically expanded their litigation against Suno, the biggest AI music platform in the game. Instead of just 560 works, the music label giants are claiming infringement of over 61,000 works—at least, if a judge approves their latest amended complaint.
In both of these expanded cases, the labels used Audible Magic, an industry-standard audio fingerprinting technology, to scan Suno’s training data, confirming that the platform used “millions” of their copyrighted tracks to train its AI models. Now, that data source is being submitted into the court record to await approval.
Naturally, Suno strongly opposes this move, arguing it would effectively reset the case and delay their ability to pursue their “fair use” defense in a timely manner. However, the labels state that they could settle that matter via summary judgment separately before completing the discovery required for the newly submitted 61,000 tracks.
The labels also assert that Suno’s argument is without merit, and that “the cause of any delay was Suno’s ongoing refusal to provide [the labels] with the data in its possession.” Indeed, the record companies say they were “forced to undertake a costly and burdensome review of Suno’s voluminous training data,” because the AI platform “declined to offer any transparency outside of the discovery process,” which initially only pertained to 560 works.
Therefore, the labels took matters into their own hands, using Audible Magic. Suno initially agreed to permit just the first stage of this analysis in June last year, but then rescinded that consent just a month later, citing “unresolved disputes” over the second stage of the process.
Both parties appeared before a judge later that month. Magistrate Judge Paul Levenson “expressed skepticism about Suno’s security concerns and suggested a compromise.” In October, an agreement was reached, and the labels went to work on their analysis of Suno’s training data in November. That process was completed in January, with the final results delivered to the labels on January 15.
Now, the labels say that denying their request to amend the complaint would effectively reward Suno for stealing copyrighted work to train its models “on an unprecedented scale and then hiding that copying from public view.”
Further, the majors have proposed that Suno’s fair use defense be addressed on summary judgment before ownership-related discovery for the expanded data set is completed, which would “moot any of Suno’s delay-focused objections.”
Their filing also includes a proposal for a second amended complaint, reasserting allegations from a prior proposed amendment filed in September. That contained allegations that Suno obtained recordings by “stream-ripping” them from YouTube.
At the same time, Warner Music Group has inked a deal with Suno, while both Warner and Universal have inked similar deals with Udio. Needless to say, there remains a strong difference of opinion between the major labels across the industry when it comes to AI and the companies that profit from it.