The American Federation of Musicians has filed an amended complaint against Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group, accusing the labels of licensing members' recordings to AI companies Suno and Udio without paying or crediting the musicians who played on them.

The amended complaint, filed on July 24, 2026 in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, names Warner Records, Inc., Atlantic Recording Corp., and Universal Music Group, Inc. as defendants, according to Music Business Worldwide. The union had initially sued Warner Music Group Corp., the parent company, but amended the filing after Warner argued the parent was not a proper party to the case.

The AFM first filed suit on June 5, 2026, in the same court. The case is captioned American Federation of Musicians of the United States and Canada v. Warner Music Group Corp. (Reuters).

At the heart of the dispute is the Sound Recording Labor Agreement, or SRLA — the collective bargaining agreement between the union and the major labels. The AFM argues that licensing recordings to train generative AI models triggers Article 21 of the SRLA, known as the "new use" provision. That clause requires signatory companies to notify the union and pay musicians when recordings are used for a purpose the agreement does not explicitly cover. Licensing catalogues to AI firms, the union says, is exactly such a use.

The background involves a pair of copyright settlements. In late 2025, Universal and Warner settled separate copyright lawsuits they had brought against Suno and Udio, two AI music-generation platforms. The AFM alleges that following those settlements, the labels began allowing Suno and Udio to use member recordings to train models that generate new music. The union further alleges that the labels were paid both for past infringement and for licensing their catalogues, and stand to earn further revenue as Suno and Udio continue using the recordings — but have not shared any of that money with the artists whose work was used.

Both labels have pushed back. Universal and Warner are seeking to have the case dismissed. The AFM has urged the court to reject that motion, Music Business Worldwide reported on July 22.

The labels have publicly framed their AI deals as artist-friendly. Universal described its Udio settlement as "a commitment to do what's right by our artists and songwriters." Warner CEO Robert Kyncl called the company's Suno deal "a victory for the creative community that benefits everyone." The AFM's lawsuit contends the opposite — that the people who actually played on the recordings have been cut out of both the conversation and the compensation.

For the musicians the AFM represents — session players, orchestral performers, and studio recording artists who may have no ownership stake in the master recordings they performed on — the case is about whether a contract clause written decades before generative AI existed can protect their work from being fed into a training dataset without their knowledge or payment. The labels say the suit should not proceed. The union says Article 21 is exactly the safeguard it was designed to be.