Sony sues Udio over 30,000 songs in new AI copyright case

In short: Sony Music Entertainment filed a new lawsuit saying Udio’s AI music generator used more than 30,000 of Sony’s copyrighted songs without permission.

What happened

Sony Music Entertainment filed the lawsuit in a New York court on Monday. Sony says Udio infringed copyrights tied to more than 30,000 sound recordings. The list includes songs like Elvis Presley’s “Hound Dog,” Beyoncé’s “Say My Name,” and Harry Styles’ “As It Was.”

Sony says the 30,000 songs are only a small part of the music it believes Udio used. The company also says it could expand the case to include more works.

This is not the first time Sony has taken Udio to court. In 2024, Sony joined Universal Music Group and Warner Records in a lawsuit against Udio and another AI music company, Suno.

Sony says it found the larger list after it got access to Udio’s training data during the legal process. “Training data” is the material an AI system studies to learn patterns, like a student learning by reading many books. Sony says it used “audio fingerprinting” to identify tracks, which is a way to match recordings using unique patterns, like matching a song by its musical “thumbprint.”

Sony previously tried to add these 30,000 songs to the older lawsuit, but a judge rejected that request. That left the earlier case focused on 333 works. Sony’s new lawsuit now makes the 30,000 songs the main issue.

Why it matters

This case is one example of a bigger fight over whether AI music tools can learn from copyrighted songs without a license. The outcome could affect what AI music apps can legally do, and how artists and labels get paid when AI is involved.

Source: The Verge AI