Photo Credit: Igor Omilaev
A federal judge has denied Sony Music’s request to dramatically expand the list of allegedly infringed works in its lawsuit against Udio.
As we previously reported, Sony Music, the sole major still litigating against Udio, moved to supersize its infringement action in late May. Per the plaintiff, a marathon discovery process enabled it to identify “hundreds of thousands” of allegedly infringed works within Udio’s training data.
But “in the interest of ensuring the orderly progress of this litigation and facilitating swift resolution of the key issues,” Sony Music opted “to prosecute Udio’s use and reproduction of” closer to 30,000 works.
In the opposite corner, the AI platform fired back against the request – expressing the belief that if approved, it’d “effectively start discovery over from scratch” and delay an answer to the all-important fair use question.
Now, Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein has agreed with the assessment and formally rejected Sony Music’s motion to amend ahead of an anticipated late-August document-production wrap.
“Adding more than 30,000 works near the close of document discovery would require substantial additional production and review, generate further disputes, and materially alter the scope of the case before me,” Judge Hellerstein noted.
“At the outset of this litigation, as early as August 21, 2024, I expressed concern about the possibility that an amendment expanding the number of works in this dispute, even to 10,000 works, could create ‘a case that is impossible’ and more than ‘any single judge could deal with,’” he continued.
And in light of the discovery “difficulties” already encountered, adding tens of thousands of works “would expand this action dramatically, prejudice Defendants by delaying the resolution of the legal questions at the heart of this matter, and considerably prolong the proceedings,” the court explained.
“I recognize that Plaintiffs have the right to seek to stop infringement of, and recover damages for, all copyrighted works. But there is no requirement that it be done in this lawsuit,” the judge concluded.
With that, the legal battle appears set to proceed with around 300 works at issue; the exit of Universal Music and Warner Music significantly reduced the figure.
Meanwhile, pressing questions remain about Udio’s “training number” – or the total works used to develop its generative models – as well as that of its Suno rival. Both companies have pulled out all the stops to prevent the tallies’ public disclosure.
Moreover, time will tell whether Sony Music and Universal Music opt to supersize their ongoing suit against Suno, which has a licensing deal in place with Warner Music. As things stand, with the case likewise tangled in the discovery weeds, a related motion has yet to hit the docket.