Universal Music settles copyright dispute with AI firm Udio

(Reuters) -Universal Music Group said on Wednesday it has settled a copyright infringement case with artificial intelligence company Udio and that the two firms will collaborate on a new suite of creative products. Under the agreement, the companies will launch a platform next year that leverages generative AI trained on authorized and licensed music. In 2024, major record labels Sony Music, Universal Music Group and Warner Records had sued Udio and another AI firm called Suno, accusing them of committing mass copyright infringement by using the labels' recordings to train music-generating AI systems. The labels alleged that the AI companies copied hundreds of songs from some of the world's most popular musicians to teach their systems to create music that will "directly compete with, cheapen, and ultimately drown out" human artists. At the time, Suno and Udio argued that using copyrighted sound recordings to train their systems qualified as fair use under U.S. copyright law and described the lawsuits as attempts to stifle independent competition. Earlier this month, a federal judge in Manhattan dismissed rapper Drake's defamation lawsuit over Kendrick Lamar's diss track "Not Like Us" against UMG, which releases both artists' music. Lamar and Drake had been engaged in a long-running feud with several high-profile diss tracks against each other. UMG is the world's biggest music label, and its catalogue of artists also includes Taylor Swift, BTS, Ariana Grande, Sabrina Carpenter and Lady Gaga. (Reporting by Rishabh Jaiswal in Bengaluru; Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips)

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