Suno, the AI music-making platform being sued by the record majors over copyright infringement, has once again unveiled upgrades to its platform’s capabilities.
The upgrades, announced on Suno’s blog on Tuesday (June 3), come amid news that Suno, along with rival AI music platform Udio (also facing a lawsuit by the music majors) are in talks with Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group to license the music giants’ recordings.
The latest news on that front came from the Wall Street Journal, which reported on Tuesday that among the key asks from the recording companies is a Content ID-style fingerprinting technology that would make it possible to track when and how a particular song is used by the AI platforms.
Content ID is YouTube’s process for identifying music that’s been uploaded to the video platform, enabling YouTube to distribute revenue from ads served on a song to the proper rights holders, regardless of whether or not the uploader had permission to post the song.
Content ID is widely credited with ending years of acrimony between YouTube owner Google and music rights holders over unauthorized uploads.
WSJ also reported that the music companies want to be “active participants” in determining which products the AI music companies develop, and how they work.
That follows an earlier report from Bloomberg, which said the three majors are seeking licensing fees from Suno and Udio, along with a “small amount” of equity in both companies.
In the meantime, the AI platforms continue to develop new products and capabilities.
On Tuesday, Suno unveiled an upgraded version of its Song Editor tool, which enables users to upload work-in-progress tracks that can then be rearranged or remixed within Suno.
The Song Editor can also alter lyrics, and the maximum length of an uploaded track has been increased to eight minutes.
Users can also start a new track by humming a melody or typing in a text prompt. The Song Editor now includes three new “creative sliders,” which allow users to determine the “weirdness” level of the track, how structured it is, and how “reference-driven” it is.
Users can complete the track within the Song Editor, or separate it into as many as 12 stems (vocals, drums, bass, etc.) and transfer the stems to the digital audio workstation (DAW) of their choice.
In a sign of how quickly AI music-making technology is evolving, the upgrades come roughly a month after Suno unveiled version 4.5 of its platform, which included improvements to the range and emotional depth of AI-generated vocals, allowing users to “create everything from delicate, intimate performances to powerful deliveries with vibrato.”
The new version also includes the capability to switch a song’s genre and mash up genres, creating, for example, tracks that blend EDM with folk music, or emo with neosoul. The maximum generated song length was increased to eight minutes.
Meanwhile, the copyright infringement lawsuits against Suno and rival Udio continue.
Record companies owned by Sony, Universal and Warner filed the suits last year, alleging “mass infringement of copyrighted sound recordings,” and offering evidence that, when prompted, the music generators will spit out music and lyrics that are very similar, if not identical, to existing songs.
In a response to the lawsuits last August, Suno and Udio all but admitted to having trained their AI models on copyrighted music, but argued that this should be seen as a “fair use” exemption to copyright laws.
Suno is also facing a copyright infringement suit brought by German collection society GEMA.
In a funding round in the spring of 2024, Suno raised $125 million from a variety of tech companies and venture capital funds, valuing the company at $500 million.Music Business Worldwide
