Universal, Sony and DistroKid Say They Are Working Toward a Resolution Over AI Music Data
Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment and the music distributor DistroKid have told a federal court in Manhattan that they are "working on a resolution" in their dispute over data about AI-generated music. The update came in a joint filing, signed by lawyers for both sides on October 27 and approved by US District Judge Arun Subramanian on October 28, according to Music Business Worldwide.
A distributor is the company that uploads artists' songs to streaming services such as Spotify on their behalf. DistroKid says it distributes 30 to 40 per cent of all new music in the world, which is why the labels want its records.
The labels are asking for two specific sets of numbers. The first is how many tracks DistroKid delivers to streaming services that are flagged as AI-generated. The second is how many of those tracks are attributed to Suno, an AI tool that creates songs from text prompts.
The labels say they want that data as evidence in their 2024 copyright lawsuit against Suno, which is pending in federal court in Massachusetts. Copyright lawsuits of this kind ask whether recordings were copied to train or build a product, and the counts would help show how much of the music on streaming services carries Suno's fingerprint.
The labels first asked the Manhattan court to enforce a subpoena, a legal demand for documents, on October 14. They had served that subpoena on DistroKid in September. Under the labels' proposed order, DistroKid would have to produce monthly figures going back to when it began using a third-party prediction model to test tracks for AI generation. A prediction model here is a software tool that estimates whether a recording was made by a machine.
The parties have agreed that DistroKid has until November 6 to respond to the labels' request for a court order. That is the next date on the calendar in the case.
Behind the filings are the people whose songs pass through these systems every week, from independent musicians uploading a single track to major-label acts with long catalogues. How the counts are collected, and what they are used for, will matter to them as well as to the companies in court.
