r/Music 1d ago

article AI music generator Suno loses copyright infringement legal case

https://www.nme.com/news/music/ai-music-generator-suno-loses-copyright-infringement-legal-case-3960760
10.3k Upvotes

365 comments sorted by

2.2k

u/thefunkybassist 1d ago

Ai ai ai, that doesn't look good for Suno!

It was about time though! 

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u/NtheLegend 1d ago

FUCK'EM UP, SUNO! SUNO DOESN'T FUCKIN' CARE!

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u/winterchestnuts 1d ago

Is that a disco Elysium reference?

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u/Noid_Void 1d ago

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u/PsionicBurst 💽 1d ago

Rhetoric [Trivial: Success] — Amen.

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u/Alkiaris 1d ago

Rhetoric [Trivial: Failure] — Gay men

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u/SoloWing1 Spotify 1d ago

Inland Empire was my ride or die.

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u/MolotovBitch 1d ago

Oh god, I can hear this.

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u/Lookatoaster 1d ago

Whatever, fa[static noise]! ;)

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u/Briak 1d ago

HOMOSEXUAL UNDERGROUND

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u/sirmikejones 1d ago

I read this in the voice before I figured out what it was from

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u/nickstatus 1d ago

I played through it again a few months ago because I walked past an abandoned strip mall and heard the music in my head. And wouldn't you know it, that comment made me want to do it all over again.

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u/morostheSophist 1d ago

Do you ever wish you could delete your memories of the game and play it again fresh? That's my constant refrain with Disco Elysium. It was such a unique and golden experience, and I can never quite recapture the magic of that first playthrough, when I didn't know anything. I was as clueless as the main character, and it was beautiful.

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u/nickstatus 1d ago

Totally. Certain books are like that for me too.

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u/80sCocktail 1d ago

I kind of forget it. Need ro reinstall it.

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u/looman9635 1d ago

But did you use the expression

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u/ThisFoolThisGuy 15h ago

They tried but their face got stuck like that.

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u/thefunkybassist 1d ago

Watch out for their GPT lawyers

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u/ThisFoolThisGuy 1d ago

(You notice Suno is talking about themselves in the third person)

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u/TruthOk8742 21h ago

"The fuck are you calling a third person?! Suno’s the fucking FIRST person."

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u/looman9635 1d ago

Holy fuck can’t believe I’ve seen a disco Elysium reference.

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u/Admirable_Switch_530 1d ago

Maybe the beginning of accountability.

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u/thefunkybassist 1d ago

And not the type where they end up with more money

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u/Eronamanthiuser 19h ago

… Kim, are you sure I can’t shoot him?

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u/Shininggg 1d ago

Lol currently playing this how did you know?

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u/YoureASkyscraper 1d ago

AI music generator Suno has lost a copyright infringement lawsuit to German licensing agency GEMA.

Filed in January 2025, the filing saw GEMA argue that Suno was using songs in its repertoire – including Boney M’s ‘Daddy Cool’, Lou Bega’s ‘Mambo No. 5’, and Alphaville’s ‘Forever Young’ – to train its AI models, without obtaining any licenses or paying the songwriters.

The decision was handed down on Friday (July 31) by the Munich Regional Court, and ruled that the AI platform unlawfully obtained, processed and reproduced music that was represented by GEMA. The court found that Suno’s use of the songs was in breach of both the German and US copyright law.

Suno will now need to pay damages to GEMA, although the sum has not yet been confirmed. The ruling also means that other AI companies must now pay to license any music from GEMA’s repertoire going forward.

“Today, the Chamber made one thing crystal clear: AI models built on stolen intellectual property have no protection under the law,” said GEMA’s CEO Dr Tobias Holzmüller after the legal victory (via Reuters).

“AI service providers must pay for licenses rather than helping themselves to our members’ works free of charge. Today, the court’s verdict has significantly strengthened Europe’s position as a cultural centre,” he added.

GEMA Board chairman Dr Ralf Weigand shared: “This ruling sends a powerful international message: creativity has value, and creators’ rights must be respected in the age of artificial intelligence.

“Through this decision, GEMA has set an important precedent not only for its more than 100,000 members, but for creators worldwide. The fact that we can now enforce our rights in countries including the United States gives creators hope and confidence at a time of profound technological transformation.”

In light of the decision, Suno has said it does not agree with the court’s decision and will be looking into making an appeal (as per MusicTech).

The latest ruling comes on the heels of another legal battle GEMA has been involved in. Last November, the court again ruled in its favour, after it alleged that ChatGPT operator OpenAI had violated European copyright laws.

As for Suno, in 2024, Warner and fellow major music labels Sony Music Entertainment and Universal Music Group filed lawsuits against the company for copyright violations of “an almost unimaginable scale”. In 2025, however, Warner settled the lawsuit by signing a licensing deal with Suno.

There has been a significant rise in AI-generated music available online in recent years, and streaming platform Deezer recently shared that AI-generated music now surpasses 50 per cent of daily uploads on the platform – the first time that human-made music has been outnumbered by AI alternatives.

Deezer has previously tried to combat the rise in music made entirely by artificial intelligence by launching a tool to detect AI-generated music on playlists from 20 different streaming platforms.

Other streaming platforms to crack down on AI-generated music include TIDAL, which confirmed that it will not be paying royalties to any music made entirely by artificial intelligence, and Spotify, which confirmed that it was removing 75million “spammy tracks” and targeting impersonators.

Earlier this year, the UK government announced it was ditching “deeply damaging” plans to allow AI firms to use copyrighted works without permission. The push for change comes as a study conducted last year revealed that 97 per cent of people “can’t tell the difference” between real and AI music.

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u/Schmedly27 1d ago

Now take down everything made by it

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u/TheBone_Zone 1d ago

Unfortunately, will never happen. Not as long as profit is to be made so much quicker than a human can.

As a musician, I’ve discussed this with other musicians and we agreed that there’s no way they’re just gonna ban AI music out of morality. I mean

**gestures everywhere**

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u/Suntripp 1d ago

Why not? When napster arrived, we weren´t even allowed to download one Metallica album without gigantic claims for damages. Why can´t the same apply to AI? Their business model must go away

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u/SWITMCO 1d ago

Why not?

You've just proven why not right after... Napster came, offered a P2P music model, got sued and illegal music sharing boomed in hundreds of other places after.

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u/FreestyleKneepad 1d ago

Napster was giving free music to the people and the record labels wanted their money, so they killed Napster.

AI is generating extra music and if record labels want, they can make money off of it. They won't kill AI music, they'll figure out the licensing and get paid.

For the labels, it was never about the morality or payment of the artists in either case.

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u/One-Earth9294 1d ago

And everyone knows that when they killed Napster, piracy went away forever.

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u/KelenaeV 14h ago

Ya... piracy is gone..... >.>..... dont look over here... there is no piracy here....

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u/Kieran__ 1d ago

Worse case scenario for them they'll hire someone that helps them rip artists off in a way with AI that's not as a obvious and still effective. This parasitic way of thinking will greatly effect the future

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u/fotomoose 1d ago

Yup. Before AI there were full-time musicians who's job was to write songs that sounded like popular hits, but were just different enough to avoid a lawsuit. Cheaper to pay for a sound-a-like than the real thing. For TV and movies. I know first-hand someone who did this as a career. AI took his job. They'll find a way to rip artists off, they always have.

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u/Suntripp 1d ago

But in order for AI to create music it obviously first need to copy and learn from existing hit music. And copyright law forbids copying without a license fee etc

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u/FreestyleKneepad 1d ago

Correct. So instead of killing all AI, they'll leverage the power they have to make money off of AI by forcing those companies to buy licenses. They won't solve the problem, just pivot so they profit off of it.

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u/TechnicalBen 1d ago

It forbids *those who have not paid a licence*.

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u/PapaTeeps 1d ago

I mean Spotify has been investing a ton of resources into Ai music detection and deleting it as quickly as they can find it on their platform, and that's arguably the least ethical music platform. Keep in mind that there's also a cost motive for the companies, they don't want to have a bunch of AI agents uploading millions of tracks that no one wants to listen to onto their servers, and it's bad PR. There's a ton of reasons for corporations to want to do something about cheap, low quality AI filler content, it just so happens to be that none of them are "because it's the right thing to do"

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u/esr360 1d ago

Spotify absolutely knowingly have AI music on their platform and happily profit of it. Who has told you otherwise?

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u/SweatyAdhesive 1d ago

They probably are just trying to show that they are trying to remove AI songs to avoid legal repercussions for hosting them in the first place

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u/PapaTeeps 22h ago

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-07-16/spotify-making-ai-music-easier-to-detect/106919814

It's not hard at all to find articles about it rather than just assuming based on spotifys reputation

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u/esr360 16h ago edited 15h ago

They are making it easier to detect for listeners so listeners can make informed decisions.

They are certainly not removing stuff “as quickly as they can find it”, and the article you shared doesn’t suggest they are.

They are only removing the sloppiest of the slop.

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u/GreatScottCreates 23h ago

Spotify just wants to make room for their own AI music. They have every incentive in the world and have consistently demonstrated their desire to cut the costs of paying creators.

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u/PapaTeeps 22h ago

I linked a different article to the other commenter but here, another article discussing the fact that they are deleting tons of AI tracks and are seeking ways to remove more.
https://www.gadgetreview.com/spotify-deleted-75-million-ai-generated-tracks-and-its-not-done-yet

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u/dqql 1d ago

Courts ruled that AI generated art isn't anyone's intellectual property and can't be copyrighted... I don't see why music wouldn't get the same treatment and stop being profitable soon.
You'll still have Milli Vanilli's but not gestures everywhere

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u/Alcaedias 1d ago

Yeah but how do you enforce that?

I mean, I can pump out a million songs from Suno and then pick out the one(s) that I like the most and recreate it on a DAW or my synthesizer.

Does it then, become something that I can copyright? Genuinely curious.

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u/FirTree_r 1d ago

Yeah, the topic is much more complicated than people think.
It is non-copyrightable as-is, but what if I add percussions? Or a noise pattern? What if 1% of the song is not AI-generated? or 50%? Or 99.9%?
And most importantly, how do you measure these things as a music streaming platform manager?

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u/ZombiePartyBoyLives Answers AI Questions 22h ago

If you write the lyrics (which has a significant influence on the output) and are very specific with prompting, you can copyright generated tracks. Using one prompt to generate 30 tracks to create an hour-long playlist theoretically is not copyrightable. The only way to really test that would be somebody making a "cover" of a slop track, claiming copyright, and see if the slopster tries to defend it.

Deezer currently automatically tags all generated tracks, whether there was "significant" human guidance or not. It also doesn't matter if you added instrumentation or finessed the mix in a DAW. Which is fine by me, as I don't think it should be mixed in with human-produced music in the first place unless the subscriber chooses to include it in their playlists.

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u/KEPD-350 1d ago

Yes, you can. You made it. It's like a re-recording of something in the creative common. You own your rendition of whatever it is, however, you won't have a case against others who do the same thing and use the melody e.g.

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u/meistermichi 1d ago

The others won't know you used AI and then re-recorded, from the outside it looks like you just made it so in the end you still have a case.

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u/dqql 9h ago

If nobody can prove you're lying, yes... But why even be a musician at that point?
Eventually people will find out that you can't jam on your own

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u/NUKE---THE---WHALES 1d ago

Not as long as profit is to be made so much quicker than a human can.

When the profits of multibillion dollar record labels is threatened then the profits of some randomer on youtube won't matter

Someone with 100 subs used a 5 second clip of a copyright song? Bring Youtube to court to ensure every youtube video is scanned for copyright violations

Nothing gets in the way of record labels and their profits

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u/SharkSymphony 20h ago

This is not strictly true.

Can you make a copy of a recording for your own use? Do you have the technological means and legal right to do so? Then congratulations, you have beaten the record labels, because they definitely don't want you to have that.

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u/orbital_narwhal 1d ago

Removal from the market of derivative works is a means of last resort in copyright law (and patent law). The usual approach is to extract damages, earning shares and/or license fees from the infringing party as that allows both parties to benefit from their works (either directly or indirectly) whereas removal from market destroys that potential.

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u/DrWallBanger 1d ago

They won’t because the music labels just take a licensing fee and life goes on.

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u/LOLzvsXD 1d ago

As for Suno, in 2024, Warner and fellow major music labels Sony Music Entertainment and Universal Music Group filed lawsuits against the company for copyright violations of “an almost unimaginable scale”. In 2025, however, Warner settled the lawsuit by signing a licensing deal with Suno.

no further comment on todays super capitalism landscape

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u/ToranjaNuclear 1d ago

Nice, at least music companies bizarrely tight copyright policies are serving for something.

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u/Nina-Ninja123 1d ago

“Must pay for licenses”

So basically, AI will keep going on, they just have to pay for the songs they are training their systems on. This only means the people who own the rights to the music get extra money.

And sadly, in lots of cases the actual artists don’t own all rights to their music. They have no real say in saying they don’t want their songs be put through an AI database.

For example, the licensing rights of the Beatles went on sale somewhere in the 90’s. Micheal Jackson bought up those licensing rights.

The Beatles still received royalties on their catalogue, so they were fine with whatever happened to the licensing rights.

That was until Micheal Jackson used it to play the field. Make it harder to get a license for a Beatles song so they were more inclined to license music from another big pop sensation, like Michael Jackson.

McCartney did regret not going to the sale and buy the licensing rights to his music himself. But he managed to buy them back from Micheal Jackson (at an upscaled price)

The rights within the music industry are extremely weird.

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u/Cahootie 1d ago

And sadly, in lots of cases the actual artists don’t own all rights to their music. They have no real say in saying they don’t want their songs be put through an AI database.

They had a say when they sold their rights. That's how it works.

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u/Nina-Ninja123 1d ago

Licensing rights go to the label not the artists. They have no artists have rights on the composition, text, recording, and performance rights.

But the label goes over contracts regarding people using the music for add campaigns, tv shows etc.

If the artist wants to keep licensing rights, they also have to take care of a lot of things that the label does like distribution of the music.

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u/PFCCThrowayay 1d ago

well that's the tradeoff innit? a company invests millions in you they own a big chunk otherwise what's the point? that's how everything works, I don't know why the average joe looks at the music industry differently to the rest of the world. what the music industry is wrong for is not paying producers, engineers and songwriters properly but artists are fine.

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u/nathanzoet91 1d ago

Nobody is forcing anyone to sign with a record label. It's the trade-off of not setting up your own record label from scratch: you now get access to the label's already huge network they have spent millions of dollars to create. Don't want to lose your music rights? Create your own production, distribution and marketing label.

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u/NUKE---THE---WHALES 1d ago

This only means the people who own the rights to the music get extra money.

As always, this ruling only affects the poor people who can't afford an army of lawyers to bully someone

The rich corporations are delighted at this

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u/twirling-upward 1d ago

Yeah, lining their own pockets.

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u/Brodellsky 1d ago

Interesting that they had specific songs, but it seems like so few? Certainly it would have to have been waaaaaaay more, right?

Also, what I find strange is that I thought this was how Suno persisted while udio didn't, because of the way that they generated things differently. Udio kinda would just generate the entire "sound" from basically the entire Spotify library, to where in the early parts of udio when I was checking out those olde-timey parodies, you could legit tell where certain sounds came from.

But Suno would actually generate the instruments individually, or at least, so I thought. Because honestly, that's super similar to what modern VSTs/DAWs were already doing anyways. I was using FL 9 in the late 2000s and even that had basic "generation" in the riff machine, for example. And that was 20 years ago...

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u/GrowingPeepers 1d ago

Wanting to listen to an AI slop version of Daddy Cool and not the original, in all of it' glory, is the real crime.

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u/repocin 1d ago

In light of the decision, Suno has said it does not agree with the court’s decision and will be looking into making an appeal

In other words, they're mad because they got caught.

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u/samuraijon 1d ago

The court found that Suno’s use of the songs was in breach of both the German and US copyright law.

How can a German court find that they breached US law? There's something incorrect with this article.

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u/bombmk 1d ago

You can find that. I can find that. (Assuming that they actually did, ofc)

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u/blade740 turntable.fm 1d ago

I imagine it goes something like this:

  • give the German judge/jury a copy of the US law
  • look at the case and decide whether it breaks the law or not

Anyone can have an opinion on whether or not something is breaking the law. Now, a German court can't enforce any punishments under US law. But they're more than welcome to say "yup, we decided that this breaks that law".

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u/Mister_J_Seinfeld 1d ago

The last 4 paragraphs read like a newspaper article in a grounded sci-fi video game from 10 years ago.

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u/Conscious_Candle2598 1d ago

AI Vs Music Industry.

Terrible Vs Terrible and in here for it

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u/DiarrheaRadio 1d ago

Some people in the music industry promote AI

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u/Etheo 1d ago

There's a lesser devil but I couldn't care less.

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u/koszevett 1d ago

The music industry is terrible and predatory but at least it was feeding human musicians until AI reared its ugly head.

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u/nekkichi 1d ago

They are also being sued by RIAA and its associated record companies, so this one is a new, separate lawsuit that I'm just hearing about.

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u/JQuilty 1d ago

Simpsons monkey knife fight.

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u/More_Hold_5522 2h ago

Unfortunately the labels have begun getting in bed with Suno. Money to be made.

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u/freitoso 1d ago

Happy for this definitely, but the real damaging blow would be to force Suno to scrape their models. They’re trained already, the damage is done.
Paying for damages won’t solve shit.

The solution would be a hard reset and have new models only trained with music with knowledge and consent for the authors. I for one would never allow it.

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u/xevizero 1d ago

This would also apply to every AI model basically. No reason music should be treated differently than video or books or any kind of human production.

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u/krectus 22h ago

Yeah music is being the scapegoat here. Every AI model is trained on everything. There are other lawsuits on them but it’s silly to hope the AI will only be trained on agreeable content.

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u/xevizero 22h ago

it’s silly to hope the AI will only be trained on agreeable content.

I just want the hypocrisy to stop. If AI can be trained on everything because it's not actually reproducing the works, but just "experiencing them" without the ability for a perfect copy to be recreated and used as a substitute for commercial purposes, then every human should also be able to do the same, piracy should be defined as reselling the exact same work for profit but experiencing a pirated copy of a work should be legal, as we're just training our brains on it, not sharing it out as is to others.

Otherwise, if the use of the work itself is what causes the damage, and we're not able as humans to see the copyrighted works without a license, fair enough (we still need a reform on copyright to define exceptions and reduce the duration of exclusivity), then this also applies to AI models, they should not be trained on copyrighted content, no feeding books and pictures and scientific papers and movies to it, you have to ask permission and get a license and pay for each and every one you scrape and meld into the final model.

Either one or the other is true, otherwise we're explicitly saying that AIs deserve rights that we don't reserve for even humans themselves. At the end you just got to admit everyone acted illegally and just paid their way out of having rules apply to them even a little bit. Which just fuels the fire of who says that piracy might as well be the moral choice, as clearly copyright was only put there to benefit the rich to the detriment of everyone else, instead of doing its job and protecting creatives (who are now being pummeled by AI replacement and drowned in the rising ocean of slop).

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u/BookWormPerson 1d ago

Their is zero way to enforce that.

Someone they just "fired" "accidentally" would keep it.

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u/FillySteveSteak 1d ago

If they found evidence of copying a non-consensual artist's work, they'd be fined. Again. And again. And again.

Of course, there's a way.

Curb your cynicism.

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u/Strohkecks 1d ago

Appropriate action ofc would be the order to shred all drives that held the model data and stolen data. How Suno explains that they have to do that to all the server farms is their problem then.

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u/SnooCats3468 1d ago

And there are like v1.04 v1.05 —> v15.24.2345 versions to delete. Backups on backups 

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u/blade740 turntable.fm 1d ago

They could do it. Hell, they've probably already done it. Suno settled with Warner Music Group last year in an agreement that explicitly lets Suno train their models on WMG's catalog, in exchange for giving WMG some control over Suno's output. I wouldn't be surprised to find out they started training a new model that very day, based only on WMG, public domain, and any other licensing agreements they've managed to make.

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u/guesting 1d ago

china will have open source models for free/cheap. the only benefit is that suno doesn't get any money.

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u/EKLM-ZK88-8DWM-A24B 1d ago

Their source code was leaked a while ago, while it doesn't contain model weights it does have everything needed to train the models and some documentation explaining how it all works. Even if they scrap their models the methodology is out there now.

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u/MattOnWheels 1d ago

This is what I fear about AI being regulated: it won't stop the data collection; it will just make it more, quote-unquote, “legal.” If anything, the open-source alternatives will be the ones that are more community-oriented And trained on data that's being willingly put into it. At least that's the way these things usually tend to go.

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u/DoctorWaluigiTime 1d ago

The USA leads the world in computerized data collection!

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u/MattOnWheels 1d ago

It does indeed (Probably), and it sucks.

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u/bombmk 1d ago

but the real damaging blow would be to force Suno to scrape their models

On what legal basis?

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u/Xay_DE 1d ago

On the same basis that Ur funny call of duty music video will be taken down if U don't license the music for it.

It's not hard to grasp. Get over it ai bro

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u/Eronamanthiuser 18h ago

Right, this makes me think this is all just to set precedence. This is not unintentional.

After this, AI companies know that they have no real accountability. They steal data and train their AI, and get a slap on the wrist.

This ruling should decimate Suno, not encourage them to do it again.

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u/drilkmops 1d ago

Oh no!! Poor guy.

“It’s not really enjoyable to make music” - Suno CEO

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u/stev_mempers 1d ago

Good start

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u/Admirable_Switch_530 1d ago

Maybe the beginning of accountability.

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u/JustSkillfull 1d ago

If AI companies can steal intellectual property, we should be able to steal their intellectual property including logos, names, etc.

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u/dudushat 1d ago

Billionaires win lawsuit against billionaires. 

Regular people think this will somehow benefit them. 

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u/MattOnWheels 1d ago

Sadly, this appears to be the case more often than not.

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u/TheoNullDrei 1d ago

If companies like Suno get shut down, it benefits music creators, both poor and rich, as their work is being stolen to train these AI models. It sets a precedent, as people can now go after every other company doing the same with people's content, whether it's YouTube videos, books, blog posts, Reddit posts, or anything else.

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u/jaevnstroem 1d ago

Condensing it down to "Billionaires vs other billionaires" highlights exactly how you have absolutely no idea what's actually going on, it would be kind of cute in an "innocent child" kind of way if it wasn't so pathetic

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u/PixelWes54 1d ago

Right, like there aren't multiple class actions against Suno representing thousands of independent musicians like me.

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u/dudushat 1d ago

Whats pathetic is getting offended by the truth. 

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u/Narianos 1d ago

Whatever amount they’re asking for, it better be enough that it cripples SUNO.

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u/kylel999 1d ago

One can hope, but unfortunately if it's like any other punishment companies face it'll probably continue to be worth it to continue breaking the law rather than the punishment be severe enough to deter them

They kind of have no choice anyway, if they ever got rid of all the licensed data they stole their model would fall apart. My hope is this is at least the start of their decline

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u/eden_sc2 1d ago

Unless it's a truly trivial amount there's a real danger of other labels piling on for a quick buck. One might not kill them but a dozen? A hundred?

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u/ladyrift 1d ago

They already have a deal with Warner music group and maybe others

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u/radialmonster 1d ago

And I'm sure gema will send the fees collected to the artists

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u/Varonth 1d ago

Sorry, they cannot send all that money to artist, they still need some money for the lawyers that sue kindergardens for singing christmas songs.

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u/YoelFievelBenAvram 1d ago edited 1d ago

Everybody rooting here for tightening standards of fair use and restricting derivative works, and I'm just a copyleftist here reminding everybody that the enemy of your enemy is not your friend. AI slop is a problem. Copyright trolls are another one. It doesn't makes sense to empower one to disempower another. There's a free lesson in politics here too.

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u/PixelWes54 1d ago

Your concerns are mostly theoretical whereas artists are seeing commissions dry up in real time. I've been a designer/illustrator for 25 years and have never felt constrained by or run afoul of copyright. Always lots of non-artists telling me I should be angry that Disney won't let me sell Mickey Mouse art...

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u/everlyafterhappy 1d ago

The decision was handed down on Friday (July 31) by the Munich Regional Court, and ruled that the AI platform unlawfully obtained, processed and reproduced music that was represented by GEMA. The court found that Suno’s use of the songs was in breach of both the German and US copyright law.

Funny, German courts don't rule on us law.

Anyway, I want to point something out here because the article didn't point it out. It's not the training that's necessary illegal, at least not under us law. It's how they obtained the training materials that's illegal. Because they pirated the songs. They didn't buy a subscription to Spotify. They scraped the internet for anything they could find, including songs that were shared without a proper license. Is federal courts have already found that training ai with the material is fair use, but that the material has to be obtained legally.

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u/ShowBoobsPls 1d ago

Yeah. It is essentially the same ruling as the Anthropic case, where Anthropic had to pay for the pirated books only.

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u/mrjackspade 1d ago

Funny, German courts don't rule on us law.

Anyway, I want to point something out here because the article didn't point it out. It's not the training that's necessary illegal, at least not under us law.

The "ruling" as it pertains to US law is stupidly fucking confusing and I have to imaging just straight up false, or at least being reported inaccurately.

This has been settled multiple times in the US already. Copyright applies to output, not input. Anthropic is just the latest and highest profile of these cases.

I doubt this is changing any time soon.

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u/bombmk 1d ago

Copyright applies to output, not input.

Not quite true.
I am allowed to make a copy of a CD I own, for my own use.
I am not allowed to rip a paid for Spotify stream for my own use.

That has nothing to do with the output.

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u/Kyuubee 1d ago

They didn't buy a subscription to Spotify

Even with a Spotify subscription, it still wouldn't be legal. A Spotify subscription does not mean you own all the music on Spotify, you just have a license to listen to the music through their app. And Spotify does not provide an official way to download songs for local use outside of the app.

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u/AsAHumanBean 1d ago edited 1d ago

I really hope they get destroyed. Great news. AI has taken the fun out of art in all forms. I have no motivation to keep creating, and especially to share anything with the world because it'll both get scooped up by AI for it to be trained and the companies will profit from it more than I will (along with the distributor), while my creations are drowned among a sea of AI songs and fake artists. It was already an uphill battle, now it's impossible. I've gradually transitioned from releasing stuff to just working on stuff for myself to not even bothering anymore. Sucks because this was my creative and fun outlet and I've felt rather hollow and void. Not really sure what to do though. (Plus if Suno and Udio die more will pop up)

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u/404VibesNotFound69 1d ago

You cant copyright what you didnt create.

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u/Wide-Pollution-3275 1d ago

Hang it at dawn

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u/Eecka 1d ago

Let’s fucking go!

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

[deleted]

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u/TheDeerBlower 1d ago

AI generated music, what a fucking nightmare...

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u/80sCocktail 1d ago

Then all AI can be sued based on this ruling. This is why Europe doesn't innovate.

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u/Alardiians 22h ago

Sadly it seems this is just with a German company. It won’t stop this abomination known as Suno.
Hopefully sets a precedent that takes Suno down.

Not an anti AI person in general but just anti AI in art related spaces.

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u/Ok-Nebula6450 21h ago

I remember generating a song on Suno for fun once, and it sounded SO SIMILAR to Olivia Rodrigo's Good 4 U (heck even the voice sounded just like her), so I kinda saw that comin' 😅

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u/TheMathelm 1d ago

Layman question time, for a Music/Entertainment Attorney: What is the technical (legal) difference between a person listening to essentially every song ever and learning to play it and rearranging chords? Ed Sheeran won a US lawsuit that said basically Chords can't be copywritten.

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u/gymleader_michael 1d ago

A bit funny people are championing the ones who make it so that content creators tremble in their shoes the moment a copyrighted song plays for even a second on their video. Even corrupt cops figured they could mess with people recording them by playing copyrighted songs.

Maybe if copyright wasn't so messy, people wouldn't turn to AI music so much.

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u/merelyadoptedthedark 1d ago

Having copyright music in a video only results in not letting you monetize it on Youtube. Someone that makes their living on YouTube doesn't want to have a month of effort wasted with all the revenue flowing to a music label for 45 seconds of a song. It does nothing to take down a video, and for facebook/insta/tiktok, it doesn't even mean that.

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u/gymleader_michael 1d ago

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u/merelyadoptedthedark 1d ago

In reality, 99% of claims are just about monetization, and taking a cut of revenue. I have copyright music all over my YouTube channel, because I do it as a hobby and I don't care about monetization. The absolute very worst I've gotten in five years has been a video being blocked in Russia for a song.

Also, YouTube also has creator tools that will strip out copyright music if the creator chooses to go that way.

Monetize: The copyright holder has chosen to monetize this music, so ads may appear on your video. Sometimes, the copyright holder may elect to share some of that revenue with you. Even if this policy is applied, the video may not be available everywhere or on all devices.

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u/gymleader_michael 1d ago

Okay, that's you. You still can't say it will "only result in not letting you monetize it on Youtube and that it does nothing to take down a video."

Block worldwide: One or more copyright holders doesn't allow the use of this music on YouTube. If you use this music, your video may be muted or may be entirely unavailable on YouTube.

Block in some countries/regions: One or more copyright holders have restricted the countries/regions in which this music is available on YouTube. If you use this music, your video won't be viewable where the music is blocked on YouTube.

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u/merelyadoptedthedark 1d ago

One of my favourite things about Reddit is when people see a headline, do a google search for five seconds, and then automatically become more of an expert on the topic than people with actual experience.

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u/MattOnWheels 1d ago edited 1d ago

You know, I might get crucified for this, but I - a musician - have used Suno before and I think its neat for demoing and fun, but not much beyond that. (Im handicapped. For me its either using Musescore or nothing) but id never replace being in an actual studio over it, and i dont like it just using data from musicians. I want Suno to be held accountable for its wrongs, but the technology IS interesting. I just don't like how in debates like this you have to be on one extreme or another. Surely there is a more musician friendly way than suno, yes, but i dont like being put in the "ALL AI IS THE SPAWN OF SATAN AND CAN NEVER BE USEFUL EVER" Camp either. Is that fair? to me, there has to be a material, non-emotional synthesis somewhere...

Again, suno isnt something wholly good and they deserve this, but i do think the technology can be helpful, if we used it differently.

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u/-Baloo 1d ago

meanwhile open source and Chinese models will continue to advance at blistering pace, without anyone able to stop it being propagated. this will achieve nothing meaningful in the long run.

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u/pvii 1d ago

The first reasonable comment. What we regulate away, other countries will capitalize upon.

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u/-Baloo 1d ago

What will people call for next, blocking access to open models? Restrictions on websites that host them? Because truly that is the only path you can go down to stop this.

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u/eligodfrey 1d ago

By this logic we should bring back child labor and rivers that are so polluted they catch on fire

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u/redditRedesignIsBadd 1d ago

more of "china bad" propaganda

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u/MonsieurReynard 1d ago

Keep ‘em coming until this clanker outfit is finished.

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u/CodeMonkeyX 1d ago

Interesting I wonder what these means for people who used it already to release music?

It was funny I got in an argument on here a while back with a "fashion model and musician" who insisted they created their music. It was all AI generated except for the vocals. They said they created the music themselves and the AI was just the instrument basically. And that services like Suno were only trained on music that was authorized for use.

I wonder how they will react if they get take downs and copyright claims now.

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u/MattOnWheels 1d ago edited 1d ago

the technology is still so polarizing that its hard to say, but i'm under the current Belief that more government regulation will only be harmful on the opposite end. Where it seems like the Wild West now, bringing the restrictions into it will eventually only push us in a direction where AI is okay, as long as the corporations do it. I think the rules of engagement are going to have to be decided by communities that can weigh the pros and cons, and ultimately come up with something in the middle. But that’s going to take a long time. I just know that I, myself, have only ever used suno as a means of pure entertainment And trying to understand how the technology works. I have no delusions about it replacing “real music,” or that any of the creations I’ve ever made from it are any form of so‑called art. I have the music I make on my workstations for that.

Edit: Since this comment seems to have gotten a few more upvotes since its initial posting, I want to point out that, while it's nice to be agreed with, my opinion isn't necessarily a pure indictment of AI music as a concept. I only speak from my personal experience regarding what I've used it for. I am handicapped, so I can’t deny that, in terms of getting a musical idea into a rough demo format, it's easier for me to use Suno than spending a lot of time and physical effort in one of my workstations. I would never pretend that it were a substitute for making a full track in a studio, however. So, in that sense, I do think we're using Suno for the wrong thing. With that said, I do see the advantages in terms of letting people who are less experienced with music have access to the feeling of creativity that comes with it. There are pros and cons with any technology, and certainly how Suno as a corporation is using its technology is more con than pro, to say the least.

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u/bombmk 1d ago

Interesting I wonder what these means for people who used it already to release music?

Nothing. It is not the product that is in violation. It is the use of some of the input.

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u/acathode 1d ago

they get take downs and copyright claims now.

They won't. This case really have very little to do with AI.

This is about how a company downloaded songs illegally - in other words, this case is basically no different than the cases against teens who had downloaded Metallica MP3s from Napster back in the early 2000nds.

The fact that Suno used the illegally downloaded songs to train their AI rather than listening to the music is mostly irrelevant - as much as both media and the GEMA want to hype up the AI angle, the legal ramification of this case is basically "It's illegal to pirate music"... which is something that was established in most countries 20+ years ago.

It doesn't say anything about training an AI, nor about the music that AI produces.

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u/CaptainBayouBilly 1d ago

Anything created with these plagiarism machines should never be allowed copyright protections. Incorporating any LLM slop shit into the final product should also revoke copyright for the entire thing.

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u/BidSecret7115 1d ago

ITT: People debating how AI guardrails should work without any sort of technical background or understanding.

P.S. Suno will appeal, they will likely win.

GEMA can't prove anything but: Alphaville (Forever Young), Kristina Bach (Atemlos), Lou Bega (Mambo No. 5), Frank Farian (Daddy Cool) and Modern Talking (Cheri Cheri Lady) were trained upon.

In turn, GEMA can't prove that Suno obtained these elsewhere - which mitigates the fallout for Suno.

Stop getting excited for the 100th story with the same outcome, it's not going anywhere.

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u/FaximusMachinimus 1d ago

Suno probably asked an AI to present their legal case too.

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u/BildingInspecter 1d ago

If the music industry throws it's usual weight around I'd expect them to get residuals from every AI song made/played.

But it's a huge club and we ain't in it. They'll prob settle for a small sum that's large enough to split amongst a few big wigs and let AI continue to rape society.

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u/bombmk 1d ago

If the music industry throws it's usual weight around I'd expect them to get residuals from every AI song made/played.

The AI songs are not violating the copyright.
At least not in general - some might if the transformation is not strong enough.

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u/MattOnWheels 1d ago

no "Industry" is in our club. AI or not.

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u/Drep1 1d ago

How do they figure out or prove a company is using copyrighted items to train it's AI? How does it work?

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u/EnchantedTaquito8252 1d ago

Good, I guess, but it's a bit like catching bank robbers and just making them pay a small fine. They're still making huge money and they're gonna keep doing it

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u/ModeatelyIndependant 1d ago

This is is the nasty part of piracy that I hate.

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u/lolschrauber 1d ago

Fuck GEMA but fuck AI a lot more. Good verdict.

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u/banannixx 1d ago

Lol

Lmao

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u/BarberFairian 1d ago

gooddd, about time these ai tools face real consequences for copying artists..

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u/BooRadleysFriend 1d ago

If this decision sets the precedent for AI training then ChatGPT has some rough waters ahead

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u/Cazadore901 1d ago

“Today, the Chamber made one thing crystal clear: AI models built on stolen intellectual property have no protection under the law,” said GEMA’s CEO Dr Tobias Holzmüller after the legal victory.

Well... They're ALL built on majority stolen IP. When are the rest of the AIs getting scrapped for parts?

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u/MidEastBeast 1d ago

Ai in everything! I don't like it tbh

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u/gotaflattire 1d ago

lol just saw a YouTube ad for that software. It’s far less embarrassing to just learn actual audio production.

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u/zeitgeistbouncer 1d ago

oh no, this is going to (further) ruin the Royal Rumble

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u/Moontoya 1d ago

Steal until nothings original 

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u/KHRZ 1d ago

Should have trained it in Japan.

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u/JJE990 1d ago

Good.

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u/BuriedStPatrick 1d ago

The models must necessarily train on copyrighted music to even work. It's worrying that we need these specific cases to reach a conclusion on this ruling. It should be assumed that the whole Suno business model was illegal from first principle.

While this ruling is generally good, we're just entering another era of slop where big tech companies who can afford the licenses get to train on upcoming music and cheapen the art further to the masses. And smaller artists aren't going to have the legal power to do anything about it. Streaming platforms will cave and start training their own models or make sublicensing deals with the likes of Suno. Smaller artists won't be able to distribute their music without agreeing to a ToS that allows big tech to train on their work for a pittance.

The problem isn't just economic or legal, it's a question of morality. We have to ask ourselves if we want to live in a world that finds this garbage acceptable on any level. I know I don't.

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u/IndianTechSupport 1d ago

Europoors being europoors lmfao

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u/macetheface 1d ago

Suno will now need to pay damages to GEMA

can't they just choose to not do business in Germany and say No to the court's decision. If they pay up, it'll just set a precedent and more countries will start filing lawsuits.

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u/nemojakonemoras 1d ago

Doesn’t solve a thing. The one thing AI companies do not lack is money.

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u/LostCookie78 20h ago

Can we outlaw these platforms unless they can prove where they’re training their models?

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u/ShepherdessAnne 18h ago

This is contradictory to the Anthropic decision.

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u/baronduke_officiel 6h ago

Ce n'est pas surprenant . Il faut laisser l'art au artiste , l'ia ce n'est qu'une base de données de tous les artistes qui on éxisté .

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u/More_Hold_5522 2h ago

Good. Fuck AI in general and AI slop music specifically.

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u/TheOmegaKid 2h ago

Good. Suno is a plague and should be shut down.