Warner Music Settles Lawsuit With AI Music Startup Suno

Warner Music Group Corp. and Suno, a generative-artificial intelligence music startup, settled their copyright lawsuit and agreed on a new partnership for creating music.

Warner and the other major record labels sued Suno and its competitor Udio last year, accusing the startups of using copyrighted material in their AI platforms without compensation for artists or the companies. Warner and Universal Music Group NV both settled recently with Udio and also struck deals with Udio to collaborate on a new commercial music creation and streaming service.

“This landmark pact with Suno is a victory for the creative community that benefits everyone,” said Warner Music Chief Executive Officer Robert Kyncl, in a statement Tuesday. “With Suno rapidly scaling, both in users and monetization, we’ve seized this opportunity to shape models that expand revenue and deliver new fan experiences.”

Earlier this month, Suno announced that it raised $250 million at a valuation of $2.45 billion. Nearly 100 million people have used Suno to make music over the past two years, the company said.

Suno allows users to type in prompts for songs and receive a fully formed track in return. Under the deal announced Tuesday, Suno will require users to pay to download their songs off the platform and upload them to streaming services. These subscribers will have a monthly cap on the number of songs they can download. WMG artists can also opt in to allow Suno users to use their names, images, likenesses, voices and compositions for new AI-generated music.

Suno has said it has acquired Songkick, the live music, concert-discovery platform, from Warner Music. The combination of Suno and Songkick will create an opportunity to deepen the artist-fan connection, according to the statement.