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.