Sony Music Sues Udio Over 30,000 Recordings After Court Blocks Expansion of Earlier Lawsuit

Sony Music Entertainment filed a new lawsuit against AI music generation platform Udio on July 20, accusing it of using more than 30,000 recordings without a license to train its artificial intelligence models. It's the label's second lawsuit against Udio, and the result of a court decision a week earlier that blocked an attempt to expand the original case filed in 2024.

The case dates back to June 2024, when Sony, together with Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group, coordinated by the RIAA, simultaneously sued Udio and rival platform Suno. Both companies were accused of copying copyrighted recordings on a scale the lawsuit called staggering, in order to train generative music models.

Why a second lawsuit

During discovery, Sony's lawyers, using audio fingerprinting technology, identified hundreds of thousands of the label's own recordings in Udio's training data. Sony tried to add 30,117 of them to the case already underway, but on June 29 the court declined, ruling there was no need to expand that particular proceeding.

The judge noted, however, that the plaintiffs retained the right to seek an injunction and damages for all copyrighted works, just not necessarily within the same case. Sony treated that wording as a green light and, within three weeks, filed a separate lawsuit covering the exact same recordings.

Three claims, high stakes

The new lawsuit rests on three legal grounds: infringement of rights to recordings made after 1972, infringement of rights to pre-1972 recordings under the Music Modernization Act, and circumvention of technical protections under the DMCA. The total potential damages, at up to $150,000 per track, could theoretically reach billions of dollars, though verdicts in cases like this rarely hit the maximum caps.

Udio's belated embrace of licensing only underscores the unlawfulness of its decision to copy Plaintiffs' protected recordings without a license in the first place - from Sony Music's complaint

Udio between settlements and disputes

Udio has spent months trying to work its way out of the legal impasse through settlements. Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group, independent label alliance Merlin, publisher Kobalt, French platform Believe and music publishers' association the NMPA have all signed licensing agreements with Udio, clearing the way to legally use their catalogs. Sony remains the only major player that has refused to settle and is instead escalating the legal fight.

A parallel case is playing out against rival platform Suno, where plaintiffs are seeking to add as many as 61,026 recordings, more than double the number in the Udio case. Warner Music withdrew from that dispute and settled with Suno in November 2025, while Universal and Sony continue to litigate. A key hearing in the Suno case, on a motion for summary judgment, is scheduled before chief judge F. Dennis Saylor IV for July 2026, and is seen as a moment that could set the standard for AI companies' liability over training data across the music industry.

Stakes for the music market

Sony's disputes with Udio and Suno are among the most important ongoing cases over generative AI training data in the music industry, and could set a precedent for similar disputes involving publishers, game makers and film producers worldwide. The outcome will determine whether AI-based music platforms will need to negotiate licenses with labels as standard practice before launching a model, or whether the cost of potential copyright infringement remains an acceptable business risk.

For Polish musicians and music publishers, the case carries indirect but real significance: the licensing models Universal, Warner and Merlin have worked out with Udio could become a template for the agreements Polish labels and collective rights management organizations negotiate with AI music platforms in the coming years.