US Courts Face Puzzle as Music Labels Sue Over AI

Udio, an artificial intelligence (AI) music website, seems to be imitating songs written and produced by actual people, flouting the rights of artists globally. This shows how music generated by artificial intelligence is not based on its own creativity but rather by “stealing” the labor and creativity of others.

This explains why earlier this year, artists such as Stevie Wonder, Nicki Minaj, Billie Eilish and Tift Merritt, among others, penned a letter warning that music generated by artificial intelligence trained on their own works could sideline artists and destroy creativity.

The use of artificial intelligence in this way has big record labels worried too. Companies such as Universal Music Group, Sony Music and Warner Music took a step further on this front, suing Udio and Suno over copyright issues.

Suno and Udio both generate content that’s similar to already-produced works. In their defense, both companies denied any violations to existing copyrights, arguing that the suits filed against them were focused on stifling smaller competitors. The companies even went as far as to compare these protests to industry concerns raised in the past about drum machines and synthesizers.

The claims made by Sony and the rest echo allegations by music publishers, news outlets, novelists and others who have also filed copyright suits over chatbots such as Claude and ChatGPT, which use generative artificial intelligence to create text.

These cases, while in different fields, pose new questions for the courts, including whether the law should bend the rules for the use of copyrighted material by AI to create something new.

The cases filed by the record labels, which may take years to settle, also bring up questions unique to music as the interplay of elements, including rhythm and harmony, may make it hard to determine when parts of a song that is copyrighted have been infringed.

In recent court sessions, both AI music companies argued that copyright laws in America protected sound recordings that simulated or imitated other recorded music. Based on this argument, they argued that their works didn’t infringe any copyrights.

The companies also used “fair use” as a defense against these claims of infringement, which raises even more questions. Fair use focuses on promoting freedom of expression by permitting the unauthorized use of works protected by copyrights under certain circumstances.

With artificial intelligence evolving rapidly and creating uncertainties at different levels of copyright law, it remains to be seen how this will play out. Companies that are engaged in creating and training large language models for their generative AI solutions, such as Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOGL) (NASDAQ: GOOG), now have to proactively consider whether the material they are using is subject to copyright law so that they don’t get mired in legal battles with parties that feel aggrieved.

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