Sony Music Leisure has filed a second copyright infringement lawsuit in opposition to Udio, asserting 30,117 sound recordings it says the AI music firm copied with out permission to coach its generative AI fashions.
The criticism, obtained and first reported by MBW, was filed on Monday (July 20) within the US District Courtroom for the Southern District of New York. You possibly can learn it in full right here.
It follows a June 29 ruling during which the identical courtroom denied Sony‘s bid so as to add greater than 30,000 of these recordings to its current case in opposition to Udio.
The swimsuit is introduced by Sony Music Leisure alongside 9 affiliated labels, together with Arista Data, LaFace, and others.
Sony and its subsidiaries first sued Udio in June 2024, in litigation coordinated by the RIAA on behalf of the most important labels.
Discovery in that authentic case allowed Sony to examine Udio’s coaching knowledge and establish a whole bunch of hundreds of its recordings utilizing audio fingerprinting, based on the brand new criticism.
The 30,117 works asserted within the new swimsuit are a subset of these matches, which the labels describe as “solely a small portion” of the recordings Udio infringed.
In its June 29 ruling, the courtroom denied Sony depart so as to add the recordings to the unique case however acknowledged that “Plaintiffs have the precise to hunt to cease infringement of, and recuperate damages for, all copyrighted works.”
The courtroom held solely that “there isn’t any requirement that or not it’s achieved in [that] lawsuit,” language Sony cites as the idea for submitting the brand new motion.
“Udio’s belated embrace of licensing solely underscores the unlawfulness of its resolution to repeat Plaintiffs’ copyrighted sound recordings, with no license, within the first place.”
Sony Music criticism in opposition to Udio
In answering the unique criticism, Udio admitted that its fashions have been “constructed by displaying this system an unlimited quantity of various sorts of sound recordings,” and that these recordings “presumably included recordings whose rights are owned by the Plaintiffs on this case.”
The brand new criticism additionally carries claims that Udio obtained most of the recordings by “stream ripping” them from YouTube utilizing the device YT-DLP, circumventing the platform’s technological protections.
Udio has acknowledged acquiring audio knowledge from YouTube to be used as coaching knowledge, whereas arguing that its use of copyrighted music quantities to honest use.
Since launching, Udio has struck licensing offers with rightsholders together with Common Music Group, Warner Music Group, Merlin, Kobalt, Consider and the Nationwide Music Publishers’ Affiliation, based on the criticism.
Sony is the one main music firm but to achieve a licensing settlement with Udio, having declined to settle the place Common and Warner did.
The criticism argues that Udio’s “belated embrace of licensing” underscores what the labels name the unlawfulness of copying their recordings with no license “within the first place.”
The swimsuit brings three claims: infringement of post-1972 recordings, infringement of pre-1972 recordings protected below the Music Modernization Act, and circumvention of technological measures below the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
Sony is searching for statutory damages of as much as $150,000 per work infringed, plus as much as $2,500 for every act of circumvention, together with an injunction.
Udio, developed by Uncharted Labs, was based by former Google DeepMind researchers and launched its service in April 2024, and is led by co-founder and CEO Andrew Sanchez.
The criticism frames Udio’s conduct as “a mad sprint to turn out to be the dominant AI music technology service,” stating the corporate has “flouted the rights of copyright homeowners within the music business” because the day it launched.
Udio’s rival Suno continues to face parallel copyright infringement claims from Common Music Group and Sony Music within the US District Courtroom for the District of Massachusetts.
Warner Music Group, a former co-plaintiff, exited that case after settling with Suno in November 2025, leaving Common and Sony because the remaining major-label plaintiffs.
Within the Suno case, Common and Sony are searching for so as to add 61,026 recordings, greater than double the 30,117 at challenge within the Udio criticism.Music Enterprise Worldwide
