It has been said that Suno and Udio are capable of producing uncanny duplicates of songs by artists such as Michael Jackson, Green Day, and The Temptations.
The major music companies are partnering with artificial intelligence businesses that they claim have trained on their tunes without charging them. Music generators Suno and Udio were sued by Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group, and Sony Music Group for allegedly infringing on copyrighted works on a “massive scale.” The lawsuits were filed amongst the three music groups.
The cases were started by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), which is attempting to prove that there is “nothing that exempts AI technology from copyright law or that excuses AI companies from playing by the rules.”
According to the complaints filed by the music companies in the federal court of the United States, Suno and Udio are accused of removing their copyrighted tunes from the internet. It has been stated that the filed lawsuits against the AI companies demand injunctions prohibiting future use as well as penalties of up to $150,000 for each work that has been infringed upon. In the event that the court decides that they are accountable, that seems like it may add up to a very significant amount. It would appear that the lawsuits are intended to instill terror in businesses who train their models without the approval of their customers, while simultaneously establishing licensed training as the only acceptable industry framework for artificial intelligence moving forward.
Both Suno AI and Udio AI, the latter of which is maintained by Uncharted Labs, are startups that have developed software that can compose music automatically based on text inputs. Specifically, the former is a partner of Microsoft for the music generating technology known as CoPilot. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) asserts that the replicated tracks from the sites are so eerily close to established works that they must have been trained on songs that are protected by copyright. Additionally, it asserts that the corporations did not dispute that they had received training on copyright works, but rather hid behind the fact that their training was “confidential business information” and conventional industry standards.
According to The Wall Street Journal, the complaints accuse the artificial intelligence generators of producing songs that sounded surprisingly similar to tunes such as “My Girl” by The Temptations, “American Idiot” by Green Day, and “All I Want for Christmas Is You” by Mariah Carey, amongst other songs. In addition to this, they assert that the artificial intelligence services created vocals that were indistinguishable from those of singers such as Lin-Manuel Miranda, Bruce Springsteen, Michael Jackson, and ABBA.
Wired reports that one of the examples cited in the lawsuit describes how one of the AI tools reproduced a song that sounded almost exactly like Chuck Berry’s pioneering classic “Johnny B. Goode.” The song was reproduced by using the prompt, “1950s rock and roll, rhythm and blues, 12 bar blues, rockabilly, energetic male vocalist, singer guitarist,” along with some of Berry’s lyrics. Specifically, the lawsuit asserts that the generator produced the “Go, Johnny, go, go” chorus from the original song in an almost flawless manner.
It should be made clear that the RIAA is not supporting on the basis of the idea that all AI training on works that are protected by copyright is incorrect. It is instead stating that it is unlawful to do so without obtaining a license and consent, which means that it is unlawful to do so when the record companies (and, most likely to a lesser extent, the artists) do not receive any money off of it.
The music recording industry is currently working on its own artificial intelligence deals that will license music in a manner that it considers to be equitable for its bottom line. One example of this is an arrangement between Universal and SoundLabs, which enables SoundLabs to generate vocal models for musicians while still allowing the vocalists to retain control over ownership and production. The label also entered into a license and royalties agreement with YouTube for artificial intelligence. Also represented by Universal is Drake, whose diss single against Kendrick Lamar, which was released earlier this year, featured duplicates of Tupac Shakur and Snoop Dogg’s voices that were manufactured by artificial intelligence.
A statement that is included in the lawsuit against Suno states that “there is room for AI and human creators to forge a sustainable, complementary relationship.” This is something that can and should be accomplished through the well-established system of free-market licensing, which guarantees that copyright owners are treated with the appropriate respect.
Mikey Shulman, one of the co-founders of Suno, was quoted as saying in April that the companies’ operations are “legal” and “fairly in line with what other people are doing.” This information comes from Bloomberg. It would appear that the artificial intelligence sector as a whole is making an effort to quickly approach a point where its tools are regarded as being too widespread to be held accountable before anybody can take any action over the manner in which it trained its models.
During the month of April, the founder of Suno stated, “We work very closely with lawyers to ensure that what we’re doing is legal and industry standard.” If there were to be a change in the law, it is evident that we would alter our business in some manner or another.