Active & partially settled RIAA-coordinated

UMG, Sony & Warner v. Suno and Udio

The RIAA-coordinated suits over generative-music training data. UMG, Sony Music, and Warner Records sued Suno (D. Mass.) and Udio (S.D.N.Y.) in June 2024. Partial settlements followed in October 2025.

🏛️ D. Mass. (Suno) · S.D.N.Y. (Udio)· Filed Jun 24, 2024

Case summary

Plaintiffs
UMG Recordings, Inc. · Sony Music Entertainment · Warner Records Inc. · ABKCO · Capitol · Atlantic (RIAA-coordinated)
Defendants
Suno, Inc. (Cambridge, MA) · Uncharted Labs, Inc. d/b/a Udio (New York)
Courts
U.S. District Court, District of Massachusetts (Suno) · U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Udio)
Filed
June 24, 2024
Claim type
Direct copyright infringement — unlicensed reproduction of master sound recordings during training
2025 settlements
Warner Music settled with Suno (Oct 2025) and Udio (Oct 2025); UMG and Sony settled with Udio in strategic-licensing partnerships; UMG and Sony continue against Suno
Status
Active against Suno; substantially settled against Udio

TL;DR

In June 2024, the three major recorded-music companies filed parallel actions accusing Suno and Udio of training their generative-music models on unlicensed copies of master sound recordings. The complaints attached side-by-side spectrograms of generated outputs that closely resembled identifiable hits (Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas Is You," ABBA's "Dancing Queen," and others) as evidence of training-set memorization.

Both defendants conceded in subsequent filings that their training corpora included copyrighted recordings, but argued fair use. October 2025 brought a wave of settlements: Warner reached deals with both companies; Udio entered strategic-partnership settlements with UMG and Sony that reportedly include licensing payments and equity. UMG and Sony continue against Suno, with discovery ongoing.

Why it matters

  • The first major-music settlements with generative AI. The Udio deals reportedly include both money and ongoing licensing — a model the labels will press in every other AI-music negotiation.
  • Training-corpus admission changes the litigation. Both defendants' early filings effectively conceded use of copyrighted recordings, isolating fair use as the only remaining defense and making the cases' fact pattern unusually clean for summary judgment.
  • Suno is the test case left. With Udio largely resolved, the surviving Suno docket against UMG and Sony is now the bellwether for whether music-AI training is fair use under U.S. copyright law.
  • Spectrogram evidence is here to stay. The complaints' side-by-side audio comparisons are now standard exhibits in music-AI cases worldwide.

More to come

Full docket tracker for the surviving Suno action, the Udio settlement terms (where unsealed), and the licensing-deal landscape coming soon. Sign up for ruling alerts to be notified when the next discovery order or settlement announcement lands.