The outcome of the case could set a precedent, not just for Suno and Udio but for the broader AI and music industries.
In a recent court filing, music generation startup Suno admitted to training its artificial intelligence model using copyrighted songs, defending the practice as legal under the fair-use doctrine.
The argument comes amid a lawsuit filed by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) against Suno and another startup, Udio, on June 24, alleging unauthorized use of copyrighted music for AI model training.
Suno’s co-founder and CEO, Mikey Shulman, elaborated on its stance in a blog post published the same day as the legal filing. Shulman argued that training AI models on open internet data, including copyrighted material, is akin to a “kid writing their own rock songs after listening to the genre.”