Here are the 30,000 songs Sony is suing Udio’s AI music generator over - The Verge

What the report says

The Verge reported that Sony Music Entertainment has brought a new copyright lawsuit against Udio, the AI music-generation company, alleging infringement involving more than 30,000 songs. The case was filed Monday in a New York court, according to the report. The catalog cited by Sony includes works associated with major artists such as Beyoncé, Britney Spears, Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley and Harry Styles, with examples including “Hound Dog,” “Say My Name” and “As It Was.”

According to The Verge, Sony says the list is not exhaustive and represents only part of the music it believes Udio used improperly. The new suit follows earlier litigation in 2024, when Sony, Universal Music Group and Warner Records sued Udio and another AI music company, Suno. In the earlier Udio case, Sony sought to add more than 30,000 additional songs after reviewing training-related material obtained through discovery and using audio fingerprinting, but the judge did not allow the expansion, leaving that case focused on 333 works.

Sony is now pursuing the larger set of works in a separate action. The Verge reported that Sony alleges Udio copied and ingested the songs into its generative AI models and points to Udio’s acknowledgment that its systems were built by exposing them to large quantities of sound recordings, including material from YouTube.

The dispute matters because it is part of a broader fight over how copyrighted music may be used to train AI systems. The Verge noted that Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group have since settled with Udio and moved into partnerships with the company. Sony is seeking court orders to stop alleged infringement and statutory damages of up to $150,000 for each infringed work.