Warner Music has signed a licensing deal with the artificial intelligence song generator Suno after settling a copyright infringement lawsuit it launched against the service a year ago
Warner, the world’s third-largest music company and home to acts including Coldplay, Charli XCX and Ed Sheeran, is the first of the major record labels to partner officially with the company.
As part of their agreement, users will be allowed to create AI-generated songs on Suno via simple text prompts using the voices, names and likenesses of the Warner acts who choose to opt in to the service.
Robert Kyncl, the chief executive of Warner Music Group, said the deal showed that artificial intelligence could be “pro-artist” when it is licensed to “reflect the value of music”.
“This landmark pact with Suno is a victory for the creative community that benefits everyone,” he said. “With Suno rapidly scaling, both in users and monetisation, we’ve seized this opportunity to shape models that expand revenue and deliver new fan experiences.”
As part of the agreement Suno, heralded as the ChatGPT for music, has committed to making changes to its platform to launch new, more advanced and licensed models next year, including putting new limitations on downloads for users.
Suno said that only paid-tier subscribers would be able to download its AI music creations, and paid users would also have to pay more for downloads and have a cap on how many they could make.
The agreement to introduce the new models, which would lead to the existing versions being phased out, seeks to stem the thousands of AI tracks made on Suno that subsequently flood streaming services.
The deal comes just over a week after Warner Music settled a lawsuit and struck a partnership agreement with the rival AI song generation service Udio.
Last year, the world’s biggest record companies sued Suno and Udio for copyright infringement, alleging that their software steals music to “spit out” millions of AI-generated songs without permission from artists.
Universal Music, the world’s biggest music company, was the first to announce a settlement with either company when it reached a deal with Udio last month. Universal remains in litigation with Suno while Sony Music is suing both Suno and Udio.
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As part of Warner Music’s deal, Suno has acquired Songkick, the live-music and concert-discovery platform, for an undisclosed amount.
In the UK, the government has been consulting on a new intellectual property framework for AI which initially looked like it would result in AI companies being able to use works from the creative community to train their models without permission.
The issue has led to a wave of protests from the creative community, which wants to see an opt-in approach, so that when a work is used it can be identified and licensed to remunerate creators.
Last week, Liz Kendall, the technology secretary, said she wanted to “reset” the debate and indicated she was sympathetic to artists’ demands not to have their works scraped by AI companies without payment.
