Musicians' union sues Universal and Warner over their Suno and Udio AI licensing deals

The American Federation of Musicians sued Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, arguing that the labels’ settlements and licensing deals with Udio and Suno had licensed recordings featuring its members to the AI companies without compensating or crediting the musicians who performed on them.

The union’s claim rested on the “new use” provision of its collective bargaining agreement, which it said required the labels to pay musicians when a recording was put to a commercial purpose beyond the one it was originally made for — a category the AFM argued clearly covered licensing a track to train a generative AI model. In its own statement accompanying the filing, the union said the labels had “protected their own interests and created a significant source of new revenue” from the AI deals while refusing to share any of that revenue with the musicians whose recordings made it possible. The suit sought unspecified damages and a court order requiring the labels to disclose which recordings had been licensed for AI training.

Universal and Warner had settled their own copyright suits against Udio and Suno respectively in the second half of 2025, converting infringement claims into licensing partnerships and payments; Sony Music, which had not settled with either AI company, was not named as a defendant. An amended complaint filed seven weeks later, on 24 July, added Warner Records and Atlantic Recording Corp. as defendants alongside the Warner and Universal parent entities, after Warner argued the parent company was not the correct party to sue.

The case marked the first instance of a musicians’ labour union, rather than the labels or rights-holders themselves, suing over an AI licensing deal — testing whether performers had an enforceable claim to a share of settlement proceeds their employers negotiated on the recordings’ behalf.