Universal Music Group and music generator Udio struck a deal to settle a lawsuit and build a new platform to remix copyrighted music

Music-generation service Udio will build an AI streaming platform in collaboration with the world’s biggest record label.

What’s new: Udio plans to launch a paid platform that enables fans to generate music based on recordings by artists on Universal Music Group (BMG) and its subsidiary labels. UMG artists include Taylor Swift, Olivia Rodrigo, Kendrick Lamar, and many other best-selling performers. The venture is part of an agreement to settle a lawsuit filed last year, in which UMG alleged that Udio had violated its copyrights when the AI company trained its music models. The financial terms, duration, and the remainder of the settlement are undisclosed. Udio is free to make similar arrangements with other music labels, the music-industry news publication Billboard reported.

How it works: The platform will allow paying customers to remix, customize, and combine existing recordings and share them with other subscribers.

Artists must give permission for their recordings to be available on the platform, and they will control how recordings may be used; for instance, to mimic voices or musical styles, change from one style to another, combine one artist’s characteristics with those of another, and the like.
Artists will receive payments for making their music available for training Udio models plus further compensation for uses of their recordings to produce generated music.
The new platform will not allow users to download generated music or distribute it via other streaming services. As part of the agreement, Udio briefly terminated the ability to download generated music from its current service and offered subscribers additional credits to generate music to compensate for taking away this capability. After users complained, Udio temporarily restored downloads of existing generated music. The company said its existing service will remain available but with differences that include fingerprinting and other measures.

Other deals: In addition to Udio, UMG forged relationships with other AI music companies that supply tools and technology.

UMG and Sony Music said they would use audio fingerprinting technology developed by SoundPatrol, which compares learned embeddings to identify generated output related to an original source.
Stability AI, maker of the Stable Audio 2.5 music generator, announced a partnership with UMG to develop professional music-production tools.

Behind the news: Like book publishers and movie studios, recording companies have moved aggressively to stop AI companies from training models on materials they control and generating output that might compete with them.

STIM, a Swedish organization that collects royalties on behalf of composers and recording artists, devised a license to compensate musicians for use of their works to train AI models.
Last year, Sony Music, UMG, Warner Music, and trade organization Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) sued Suno and Udio for alleged copyright violations in their music generators. The music companies filed separate lawsuits that alleged the AI companies had trained AI models on copyrighted recordings, and made unauthorized copies in the process, to compete commercially with their music.
In 2023, UMG pressed Apple Music, Spotify, and YouTube to counter AI-enabled imitations of its artists by blocking AI developers from downloading their recordings. It also asked the streaming companies not to distribute AI-generated music.

Why it matters: Music labels, like other media companies, see their businesses threatened by generative AI, which can synthesize products that are superficially similar to their own at lower cost and in less time. A study by the French streaming music service Deezer found that nearly 28 percent of the music it delivered was generated. In June, a musical group called Velvet Sundown racked up 1 million plays on Spotify of music generated by Suno. The settlement between Udio and UMG unites traditional and AI-generated music in a single business and suggests there could be common ground between media and AI companies, albeit with side effects such as limiting Udio’s distribution of generated music.

We’re thinking: Lawsuits against Suno and Udio by Sony Music, Warner Music, and the RIAA are still underway. This deal offers a blueprint for resolving those cases, but their outcomes are by no means certain. As lovers of music, we look forward to hearing more of it.