Sony's 30,000-song Udio suit threatens to reshape AI licensing
Sony has filed a new copyright lawsuit against AI startup Udio, using its rivals' licensing deals to argue that tech companies must pay for training data.
Sony filed a fresh lawsuit in New York on Monday accusing AI music generator Udio of infringing 30,117 recordings. The label is demanding the statutory maximum of $150,000 per track, targeting a catalogue that spans Elvis Presley and Beyoncé to Michael Jackson and Bob Dylan.
The case hinges on a legal strategy that turns the music industry's recent peace with AI into a weapon. While Universal, Warner, and several independent labels signed training licences with Udio months ago, Sony refused.
It now argues those competitor deals prove a licensing market exists, destroying Udio's defence that its data scraping falls under fair use. “A company that pays to license the very inputs at issue cannot credibly maintain that no market exists for those inputs,” the complaint reads.
This is Sony’s second suit against the startup. Judge Alvin Hellerstein blocked Sony from adding the new tracks to its initial 2024 case to prevent trial delays. Sony complied by filing a separate action after audio fingerprinting of Udio’s training data revealed that the original 333 songs were a "minuscule" fraction of the alleged infringement.
The complaint covers three counts: copying modern recordings, copying pre-1972 recordings, and bypassing YouTube’s anti-circumvention protections to extract audio. Udio has previously admitted to pulling audio from YouTube, alongside rival Suno, while maintaining the practice qualifies as fair use.
For European investors and tech companies, the Manhattan litigation carries implications far beyond the music industry. The question of whether AI training constitutes fair use remains untested in court, sitting at the centre of parallel disputes involving book publishers and film studios. Sony is carefully framing its stance as pro-licensing rather than anti-AI, pointing to its own partnerships with Spotify and the startup Klay.
If Sony’s market-harm theory prevails, it will effectively force AI developers across all sectors to budget for training data. A precedent requiring payment for inputs would fundamentally alter the economics of building AI models in Europe, shifting value from technology startups back to rights holders and content creators.
