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Universal, Warner and Sony Are Negotiating AI Licensing Rights for Music

Key Points

What’s This?

• Major labels are negotiating AI music licensing deals with Suno and Udio, potentially setting precedents for AI-generated music compensation.
• Music companies want attribution technology to track song usage in AI, participation in AI product development and artist opt-out options.
• Labels aim to protect artists’ work, generate revenue, and settle copyright lawsuits amid regulatory uncertainty and investor pressure.

Major music companies are negotiating licensing deals with two startups that could set a new precedent for how songs are used and artists are paid for remixes generated by artificial intelligence.

Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group WMG -0.23%decrease; red down pointing triangle and Sony Music Group want to be compensated by startups Suno and Udio when music by artists they represent is used to train generative AI models and produce new music, according to people familiar with the talks.

To determine how much artists and labels should be paid, the companies want the startups to develop fingerprinting and attribution technology—similar to YouTube’s content ID—to track when and how a song is used, the people said.

In addition, the music companies want to be active participants in the music-related products that the AI companies release, including having a say in which products are developed and how they work.

The companies represent some of the most popular artists, such as Taylor Swift, Drake and Ed Sheeran. News of the negotiations was reported earlier by Bloomberg.

The negotiations are a sign of how record labels, like movie studios, book publishers and news organizations such as The Wall Street Journal’s owner News Corp, are trying to protect against the threat that generative AI poses to their business while creating new revenue streams.

The Recording Industry Association of America, the music industry’s trade group, filed a lawsuit last June against Suno and Udio, alleging the firms were infringing on artists’ and labels’ copyrights.

Suno said its technology was creating new content and not memorizing or regurgitating pre-existing music. Udio said that the goal of its training was to develop an understanding of musical ideas that aren’t owned by anyone and that it has filters to ensure its model doesn’t reproduce copyrighted works or artists’ voices.

Both the labels and startups are now eager to come to terms on licensing rights given a more uncertain regulatory environment and investor pressure to develop commercial frameworks for the use of music in generative AI products.

The Trump administration’s firing of U.S. Copyright Office Director Shira Perlmutterlast month especially raised concern in the music business that the White House would favor tech companies in disputes over AI and copyright.

Each label is negotiating with the startups individually, and the talks are at different stages of progression, the people said.

A hurdle for the labels is how to come to commercial terms to license their catalogs at scale in a way that not only protects artists’ work but also garners broad support among musicians, some of whom may be wary.

The labels are seeking provisions for artists to be able to opt out of certain use cases.

Any licensing agreements would likely involve a settlement of the suit between the two sides and would require some amount of damages paid for the use of music so far. Agreements would also likely involve the music companies taking stakes in the AI companies.

Music companies often take stakes as part of licensing agreements with startups. Universal, Warner and Sony had stakes in Spotify when the music-streaming service launched.

Appeared in the June 3, 2025, print edition as ‘Music Labels Negotiate AI Licensing Rights’. Read original here