Filing a new lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York against AI startup Udio, the company accuses it of massive copyright infringement involving more than 30,000 protected sound recordings used to train its AI models.
Sony Music filed its initial lawsuit in June 2024. However, during the legal proceedings, it was revealed that more than 30,000 of the company’s tracks were included in Udio's training datasets.
Since the presiding Judge, Alvin K. Hellerstein, denied Sony's request to add these tracks to the original lawsuit, the company proceeded with this new filing. The allegations concern a significant portion of Sony Music's catalog, including tracks by iconic artists such as Alicia Keys, Dolly Parton, and Elvis Presley.
Damages claimed reach up to $150,000 per protected work, with Sony pointing to the unchecked generation of synthetic tracks that threatens the viability of the music market. Udio admits to training its models on this material, invoking the "fair use" doctrine and arguing that its models do not replicate the original content outright, but rather "learn" from it.