The RIAA versus AI, Explained

Udio and Suno are not trendy new eateries in the Lower East Side. Instead, they are pioneering AI startups enabling users to generate remarkably realistic songs, complete with instrumentation and vocals, from simple prompts. However, these innovations have landed them in hot water. On Monday, a consortium of major record labels filed lawsuits against them, alleging massive copyright infringement, claiming that these companies have illegally ingested large volumes of copyrighted music to train their AI models.

These lawsuits add to the growing legal challenges facing the AI industry. Many leading firms have trained their models using data scraped from the internet without authorization. For example, ChatGPT was initially trained on millions of documents gathered from links posted on Reddit.

The Legal Quagmire

These particular lawsuits, spearheaded by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), address music rather than text. However, like The New York Times’ lawsuit against OpenAI, they pose a critical question that could reshape the tech landscape: can AI firms freely use any content, turn it into a profitable product, and claim it as fair use?

“That’s the key issue that’s got to get sorted out, because it cuts across all sorts of different industries,” says Paul Fakler, a partner at the law firm Mayer Brown specializing in intellectual property cases.

Who Are Udio and Suno?

Udio and Suno are relatively new but have quickly made waves. Suno, launched in December by a Cambridge-based team with a background at Kensho, an AI company, soon partnered with Microsoft to integrate Suno with Copilot, Microsoft’s AI chatbot.

Udio, launched just this year, has attracted substantial investment from tech heavyweights like Andreessen Horowitz and music industry icons like Will.i.am and Common. Comedian King Willonius used Udio’s platform to create “BBL Drizzy,” a viral Drake diss track that producer Metro Boomin remixed and released for public use.

Why is the Music Industry Suing Udio and Suno?

The RIAA’s lawsuits use lofty language, emphasizing the role of copyright in incentivizing human creativity. However, the underlying incentive is financial. The RIAA argues that generative AI threatens the record labels’ business model. According to the lawsuits, instead of licensing copyrighted recordings, potential licensees could use AI to generate soundalikes at minimal cost, flooding the market with copycats and undermining the established sample licensing business.

The RIAA is seeking damages of $150,000 per infringing work, a figure that could escalate given the extensive datasets typically used to train AI systems.

The Similarity Issue

The lawsuits include examples of AI-generated music and comparisons to existing copyrighted works. Some generated songs contain small phrases or extended sequences of similar notation to the originals. For instance, one track mimics Jason Derulo’s signature introduction, and another resembles Green Day’s “American Idiot.”

However, the RIAA isn’t claiming these specific tracks infringe on copyrights directly. Instead, they argue that the AI companies used copyrighted music in their training data. Neither Suno nor Udio has disclosed their training datasets, a common practice in the AI industry.

Including these examples in the lawsuit is unusual and likely for public relations purposes, says Fakler. Legally, it’s permissible to create a soundalike if you have the rights to the underlying song.

The Fair Use Defense

The crux of the matter is whether the use of copyrighted music for AI training constitutes fair use. Fair use allows for the use of copyrighted material to create a transformative work. The RIAA argues against fair use, stating that the AI outputs replace real recordings, are for commercial purposes, involve extensive copying, and threaten the labels’ business.

Fakler believes the startups have a solid fair use argument if the copyrighted works were only temporarily copied and their features were abstracted into the AI model. “It’s extracting all of that stuff out, just like a musician would learn those things by playing music,” he explains.

Ultimately, the outcome depends on judicial interpretation and the specifics revealed during the discovery process. Which music tracks were used and how they were incorporated into the training set could significantly impact the case.

A Long Legal Battle Ahead

As these lawsuits progress, they will address pivotal questions about fair use and the AI industry. From text and photos to sound recordings, the debate over fair use continues to loom large. The RIAA’s lawsuits, along with similar cases, will play a crucial role in determining the future of AI and its relationship with copyrighted content.

Stay tuned to Kushal Bharat Tech News for more updates on this evolving story and other significant technological advancements shaping our world.