{"slug": "sony-sues-ai-music-generator-again-after-copying-30k-songs-from-beyonce-elvis", "title": "Sony sues AI music generator again after copying 30k songs from Beyonce, Elvis & more", "summary": "Sony Music has filed a new lawsuit against AI music generator Udio, alleging it copied more than 30,000 songs from artists including Beyoncé, Michael Jackson, and Elvis Presley without permission to train its AI. The lawsuit, reported by Music Business Worldwide, claims a forensic review identified hundreds of thousands of Sony-owned recordings in Udio's training data, and accuses Udio of stream-ripping music from YouTube using YT-DLP. Sony is seeking damages of up to $150,000 per infringed recording and an injunction.", "body_md": "Sony Music has filed a new lawsuit against AI music generator Udio, claiming it found more than 30,000 of its songs inside the company’s AI training data.\n\nThe record label says the 30,117 tracks named in the lawsuit are only a fraction of what it believes Udio copied without permission to build its music-generating AI, with a forensic review allegedly identifying “hundreds of thousands” of Sony-owned recordings in the training dataset.\n\nAccording to the [lawsuit](https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/files/2026/07/Sony-Udio.pdf), which was reported by [Music Business Worldwide](https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/sony-music-files-new-lawsuit-against-ai-platform-udio-asserting-over-30000-sound-recordings-a-judge-barred-it-from-adding-to-its-original-case/), the songs span artists including Beyoncé, Michael Jackson, Harry Styles, Mariah Carey, Elvis Presley, and many more.\n\n## Sony files second lawsuit against Udio\n\nSony says it only uncovered the scale of the alleged copying after inspecting Udio’s source code and training data during discovery in an earlier lawsuit, when the company and its subsidiaries sued the music generator for “mass infringement of copyrighted sound recordings.”\n\nThe lawsuit also accuses Udio of obtaining many of those recordings by “stream ripping” music from YouTube using the tool YT-DLP, alleging it bypassed the platform’s protections to create permanent copies for AI training.\n\n“The 30,117 sound recordings asserted in this action may more closely reflect the breadth of Udio’s infringement, in reality they remain only a small portion of Plaintiffs’ works that Udio infringed,” the lawsuit states.\n\nThe filing also claims Udio’s recent licensing deals with companies including Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group weaken its defense.\n\n“Udio’s belated embrace of licensing only underscores the unlawfulness of its decision to copy Plaintiffs’ copyrighted sound recordings, without a license, in the first place,” Sony argues in the complaint.\n\n## Related\n\nUdio has previously admitted its AI models were trained on “a vast amount of different kinds of sound recordings,” which “presumably included recordings whose rights are owned by the Plaintiffs,” but maintains that training AI on copyrighted music qualifies as fair use.\n\nSony is seeking damages of up to $150,000 for each infringed recording, along with an injunction to stop further copyright infringement.\n\nArtificial intelligence is becoming increasingly popular in music, as a [Japanese AI metal band became real after the creator hired musicians](https://www.dexerto.com/entertainment/ai-band-becomes-real-life-group-after-creator-hires-actual-musicians-to-perform-for-them-3336120/), and an [AI song recently hit number one on iTunes](https://www.dexerto.com/entertainment/ai-generated-song-takes-1-spot-on-itunes-global-charts-3353485/).", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/sony-sues-ai-music-generator-again-after-copying-30k-songs-from-beyonce-elvis", "canonical_source": "https://www.dexerto.com/entertainment/sony-sues-ai-music-generator-again-after-copying-30k-songs-from-beyonce-elvis-more-3389908/", "published_at": "2026-07-22 10:05:22+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-07-22 10:23:54.630318+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["artificial-intelligence", "ai-policy", "ai-ethics", "ai-products"], "entities": ["Sony Music", "Udio", "Beyoncé", "Michael Jackson", "Elvis Presley", "Universal Music Group", "Warner Music Group", "Music Business Worldwide"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/sony-sues-ai-music-generator-again-after-copying-30k-songs-from-beyonce-elvis", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/sony-sues-ai-music-generator-again-after-copying-30k-songs-from-beyonce-elvis.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/sony-sues-ai-music-generator-again-after-copying-30k-songs-from-beyonce-elvis.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/sony-sues-ai-music-generator-again-after-copying-30k-songs-from-beyonce-elvis.jsonld"}}