The music industry has officially declared war on Suno and Udio, two of the most prominent AI music generators. A group of music labels including Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group, and Sony Music Group has filed lawsuits in US federal court on Monday morning alleging copyright infringement on a “massive scale.”

The plaintiffs seek damages up to $150,000 per work infringed. The lawsuit against Suno is filed in Massachusetts, while the case against Udio’s parent company Uncharted Inc. was filed in New York. Suno and Udio did not immediately respond to a request to comment.

“Unlicensed services like Suno and Udio that claim it’s ‘fair’ to copy an artist’s life’s work and exploit it for their own profit without consent or pay set back the promise of genuinely innovative AI for us all,” Recording Industry Association of America chair and CEO Mitch Glazier said in a press release.

  • Hacksaw@lemmy.ca
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    4 months ago

    The best part about this is that UMG WMG and SMG all simultaneously went “you can’t take an artist’s life work and exploit it, that’s unfair, it’s OUR job to take an artist’s life’s work and exploit it”

    • GiveMemes@jlai.lu
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      4 months ago

      I mean yes to the sentiment but it would be quite a bit different if these artists signed a distribution contract with the AI company saying they got a miniscule percentage of royalties for every track somebody generated or even licensed this music to train on whatsoever.

    • pavnilschanda@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      This is true in the art industry as well. Many outsourced artists from third world countries are exploited with unreasonable wages and long hours

  • FaceDeer@fedia.io
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    4 months ago

    Of course, because music belongs to the Record Labels. How dare it be made without their consent (and a cut being paid).

  • Even_Adder@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    4 months ago

    Music copyright is such a shitshow. It doesn’t surprise that they would try this.

    Edit: I just heard the generated songs that are part of the lawsuit. They’re pretty fucked if this is true,

  • breadsmasher@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    Our technology is transformative; it is designed to generate completely new outputs, not to memorize and regurgitate pre-existing content

    Oops! You appear to have consumed and believed your own shit you’re peddling

  • Max-P@lemmy.max-p.me
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    4 months ago

    Because humans don’t also take inspiration from other’s work they’ve heard and unconsciously repeat part of other songs they’ve heard before, possibly decades ago. Never happens. Never. Humans don’t profit from books they’ve read and apply to their career. Humans don’t profit from watching other humans do the thing and then learn to do it themselves.

    All AI does is do the same thing but at ridiculous scale and ridiculous speeds. We shouldn’t hold progress because capitalism dictates that we shouldn’t put people out of jobs. We need to prepare for the future where there is no jobs and AI replaced all of them.

    • Hacksaw@lemmy.ca
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      4 months ago

      AI isn’t “like a person” it doesn’t “learn like a person” it doesn’t “think like a person” it’s nothing like a person. It’s a a machine that creates copies of whatever you put into it. It’s a machine that a real person, or group of people, own. These people TAKE all the stuff everyone else created and put it into their copy machine.

      In fact it’s really easy to show that it’s a copy machine because the less stuff you put into it the more of a direct copy you get out of it. If you put only one song, or one artist, into it then virtually everything it creates would be direct copyright infringements. If you put all of the worlds music into it the copying becomes more blurred, more complex, more interesting, and therefore more valuable.

      Sure AI is a great innovation, but if someone wants to put my work into a copying machine they’re going to have to acquire it from me legally.

      No one is against AI, we’re just against the people who own the AI machines stealing our work without paying for it.

    • Stopthatgirl7@lemmy.worldOP
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      4 months ago

      Someone posted links to some of the AI generated songs, and they are straight up copying. Blatantly so. If a human made them, they would be sued, too.

      • overload@sopuli.xyz
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        4 months ago

        I think with all the frivolous lawsuits based on music sounding similar in cases like Kate Perry and Ed Sheeran lately, you’d be crazy to release AI generated music right now. Marvin Gaye’s estate probably have lawsuits already drafted up.

    • dhork@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      But a human can synthesize all those works and transform them into something new. All the AI is doing is regurgitating stuff it has heard before. I don’t want to try to put a bot on the same level as human creativity.

      • Grimy@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        Multi-billion dollar corporations like Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group, and Sony Music Group?

        All of music is basically owned by like 4 companies. This is them trying to make sure they own all AI generated music too.

    • We need to prepare for the future where there is no jobs and AI replaced all of them.

      You seem to think that the natural extension of this is that everyone who used to have a job continues to flourish, and doesn’t die in the gutter because they have no money/shelter/food.

      The naivity would be adorable, if it weren’t also extremely dangerous and playing directly into rich assholes’ plans to bleed everything dry for themselves.

  • SacredHeartAttack@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    I can’t believe I’m on the music industry’s side on this. It’s a sad day when I have to root for the team that’s made it hard for me to make a living while they fight against the team that’s trying to make me obsolete.

    • Tregetour@lemdro.id
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      4 months ago

      Staggeringly naive, tbh. Your profession will be made obsolete as a self-sustaining for-profit enterprise either way. The difference is that the tooling can either be owned exclusively by megacorp, or it can be owned by people.

      It’s better to be a bard relying on the charity and small custom of others than a literal sharecropper fueling Universal’s proprietary model for next to nothing. At least in the former case you’re free.

  • Kowowow@lemmy.ca
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    4 months ago

    Aren’t there two guys who already “own” all possible combinations of notes they should get in on the fight too

  • dinckel@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    So exploiting artists is fine, but when the labels get scammed, that’s where they draw the line?

    • Blackmist@feddit.uk
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      4 months ago

      But of course. If artists want to fight for their rights, they better get their own lawyers.

  • gedaliyah@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    Okay, now we’re cooking!

    This is like when the bad guy from the last movie teams up with the heroes at the last minute to help fight the new big bad.

  • Grimy@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    AI tools and entertainment will become common place in the future. All these lawsuits decide is if we can have it for free or through a subscription payed to Sony and friends.