“Fair use” is the right of the public to make reasonable use of copyrighted material in special circumstances without the Copyright Owner’s Permission. The United States Copyright Act recognizes that fair use of a copyrighted work may be used “for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, or research.”
Multiple artists and labels are suing AI music companies like Suno. Round Hill Music says:
“We are against the idea that you can build a business worth billions on top of other people’s creative work and pay the creators nothing.”
Jason Isbell filed a class-action suit. He compared Suno to The Borg from Star Trek: Next Generation, coldly assimilating everything unique in its path.
“People feel really good when they’re creative,” Suno’s chief executive, Mikey Shulman, said in an interview. “The company exists to let people feel those warm and fuzzy feelings of being creative.” More than 100 million people have created songs with the service, Suno says, and two million people have subscribed to an upgraded plan that includes commercial rights to the songs they’ve created.
Sony, Universal, and Warner all sued Suno for copyright infringement in 2024. Warner has settled with Suno, BMG has signed a licensing deal with them, and Sony and Universal have signed agreements with other A.I. music companies. Having gotten scorched by Napster and other disrupters (50% contraction estimated in the early oughts), the record companies are in “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em” mode.
The legislative director of United Musicians and Allied Workers is treating this as a threat to anyone below the level of musical superstar:
“No one has explained why it’s a good idea to start making music without musicians being involved.”
I’m enjoying the fact that the fake number one song is a macho white guy grievance tune. Just perfect, somehow.