A group of record labels is taking Listen and Udio, two providers of AI music generators, to US courts. The accusation is of massive copyright infringement. On the one hand, large language models (LLMs) were illegally trained using copies of sound recordings that are protected by intellectual property rights. On the other hand, the pieces of music released by LLMs are sometimes so similar to protected recordings that they violate the corresponding rights.
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The plaintiffs have made these allegations in two lawsuits. Microsoft partner Suno is to respond in the US Federal District Court for Massachusetts (Aff. 1:24-cv-11611), Udio is to respond in the US Federal District Court for Southern New York (Aff. 1:24-cv-04777). In each case, unidentified individuals are also accused (John Does 1-10); they are said to have provided copyright-protected recordings for training AI entrepreneurs LLM. As examples, the plaintiffs point to recordings of ABBA, The Beach Boys, The Beatles, Michael Buble, Chuck Berry, James Brown, Mariah Carey, Coldplay, Green Day, Bill Haley, BB King, Michael Jackson, Jerry Lee Lewis, Sting, The Temptations and others, some of which surprisingly copied Suno or Udio, or whose “inspiration” at least cannot be dismissed out of hand.
fair use?
The plaintiffs are eleven or twelve record labels, including three industry giants Sony Music Entertainment, UMG Recordings and Warner Records. They coordinated through the industry association RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America). The injunction and one-time damages of $150,000 per affected recording are required.
The defendants say they do not reproduce the original voices or recordings and that their approach is “transformative”. In doing so, they insist on fair use. The purpose of US copyright is to “promote the progress of science and useful arts”. If it helps achieve this goal, third-party works can be used free of charge even if the rights holder does not agree. This principle is known as fair use. The law does not conclusively regulate when exactly fair use occurs. That would also be very difficult.
In the event of a dispute, at least four factors must be considered: the type of use – commercial, non-commercial or educational – including whether “transformative” use is recognized as “fair”, and the type of use, compared to the portion of the work used, the effect on the work as a whole and ultimately on the potential market or value of the work. The four test results must then be weighed against each other.
(DS)
