From Lawsuits to Licensing: How the Music Business is Learning to Live with AI

A quiet but significant change is taking hold in music studios and publishing offices. According to Mikey Shulman, CEO of the generative AI platform Suno, a shift in sentiment began earlier this year. 'I don’t meet many producers and songwriters who aren’t using Suno at least a little in their workflows,' Shulman notes. 'People are becoming more public about it, and more optimistic.' This marks a turn for a technology that entered the industry as a profound taboo, facing immediate lawsuits from major record labels over its training data.

Those legal battles are now fracturing into a mix of conflict and collaboration. While litigation with some labels continues, Suno settled with Warner Music Group last November. Competitor Udio reached agreements with both Universal and Warner. The dynamic is evolving from outright opposition to a tense, exploratory partnership. To demonstrate utility, Suno recently hosted a songwriting camp during Grammy Week, showing professionals how the tool could generate song concepts for later human refinement.

Professional reactions are mixed but pragmatic. Songwriter Autumn Rowe, who has credits for major artists, remains skeptical but has started testing Suno to revitalize old, unrecorded demos. 'I worry about younger writers using it before they’ve honed their craft,' she says. 'But it could help writers get more leverage if they handle early production themselves.'

This real-world experimentation provides a case study for other media sectors. The music industry, often criticized for resisting technological change, is now navigating AI’s complexities ahead of film and television. Analyst Tatiana Cirisano of Midia Research suggests music may be better prepared. 'The barrier for entry with music has been lowering for a very long time,' she observes. 'AI speeds up the challenges considerably, but some of the fundamental questions are the same.'

Significant hurdles remain, including widespread fraud on streaming platforms and unresolved questions about artist compensation in new licensing models. Yet, a path forward is being charted, not through universal agreement, but through incremental deals and hands-on testing. As Shulman puts it, 'You don’t need everybody at the beginning.'

Source: The Hollywood Reporter