In San Francisco, two rapidly expanding artificial intelligence music start-ups, Suno and Uncharted Labs (developer of Udio), are facing lawsuits from major players in the music recording industry. The record companies, including Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group, and Warner Records, allege that both companies used copyrighted songs without permission to train their AI tools. This adds to the growing number of lawsuits that have been filed against the AI industry. Mitch Glazier, CEO of the Recording Industry Association of America, expressed concerns about the unauthorized use of artists' works by these unlicensed services, stating that it impedes the progress of genuinely innovative AI technology. Generative AI tools, such as chatbots, image-generators, and song-generators, rely on ingesting vast amounts of human-created content. The record companies claim that Suno and Udio incorporated songs they did not have the rights to when training their AI algorithms. Representatives from both companies have not provided any comments on these allegations. As interest in AI technologies has surged in the past year, creators such as authors, artists, graphic designers, musicians, and journalists have started to challenge the use of their work by the AI industry for training purposes.

Lawsuits have been filed against AI companies like OpenAI by authors, comedians, and newspapers. While AI leaders argue that the use of copyrighted materials falls under "fair use, " a concept in copyright law that allows for reuse if significant changes are made, many creators disagree, arguing that their work is being appropriated for training tools that could potentially replace them. Suno and Udio offer users the ability to generate full songs by providing descriptions including genre, lyrics, and desired instruments. Suno specifically blocks requests for songs resembling a specific artist. However, the lawsuit presented evidence of AI-generated songs that closely resemble existing human-produced songs. For example, by inputting lyrics from Jerry Lee Lewis' "Great Balls of Fire" and the artist's name, an AI-generated song on Suno was created with a chorus possessing the same rhythm and lyrics as the original 1961 hit. The Washington Post also replicated this AI-generated song in a test. Udio, on the other hand, does not seem to have the same restriction and easily produces a mournful country song with lyrics sung by a voice similar to Dolly Parton's when provided with the same prompt.