30,000 Copyrighted Songs Spark Sony's Lawsuit Against Udio AI Music Generator

A diverse array of artists, including Beyoncé, Britney Spears, Johnny Cash, and Harry Styles, are featured among the contested works.

Sony Music Entertainment has initiated a new legal action against Udio, an AI music generator, alleging copyright infringement across more than 30,000 of its sound recordings. The extensive list of infringed works spans iconic tracks such as Elvis Presley's "Hound Dog," Beyoncé's "Say My Name," and Harry Styles' "As It Was." Filed in a New York court earlier this week, the complaint asserts that these identified works constitute “only a small portion of Plaintiffs’ works that Udio infringed,” a detail first reported by Music Business Worldwide.

This development follows an earlier 2024 lawsuit where Sony, alongside Universal Music Group and Warner Records, took legal action against both Udio and another AI music creator, Suno. During the discovery phase of that previous case, Sony gained access to Udio’s training data. Utilizing an “audio fingerprinting” technique, Sony subsequently identified a substantial number of additional songs. The company then sought to amend that initial complaint to include over 30,000 works Udio purportedly “copied and ingested into its generative AI models.” However, a judge ultimately denied this motion, thereby restricting the scope of the original lawsuit to 333 specific recordings.

Sony has now formally made these more than 30,000 songs the central focus of its newly filed litigation, indicating potential for further expansion. The music giant asserts that Udio itself has “admitted that its generative AI models were ‘constructed by showing the program a vast amount of different kinds of sound recordings,’” specifying sources like YouTube. Notably, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group, who were co-plaintiffs in the earlier action, have since reached settlements with Udio and are now engaging in partnerships, signaling a broader industry trend towards integrating AI technologies.

The complete catalog of songs central to Sony's claims against Udio is detailed in the official court filing. Sony is seeking both injunctive relief, aiming to prevent Udio from further infringing its copyrighted works, and monetary damages of up to $150,000 for each instance of infringement.