Sony names 30,000 songs in new Udio lawsuit

Sony Music Entertainment has filed a new lawsuit against Udio, dramatically widening its copyright fight with the AI music generator. The company says Udio infringed more than 30,000 songs, including Elvis Presley’s “Hound Dog,” Beyoncé’s “Say My Name,” and Harry Styles' “As It Was.”

The lawsuit was filed in New York on Monday. According to the filing, the list covers only “a small portion of Plaintiffs' works that Udio infringed,” a claim first reported by Music Business Worldwide.

This follows an earlier 2024 lawsuit in which Sony, Universal Music Group, and Warner Records sued both Udio and Suno. Sony says that after getting access to Udio’s training data through discovery, it identified additional tracks using an “audio fingerprinting” technique.

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Sony had previously asked to add the 30,000-plus songs to the original case, alleging that Udio “copied and ingested” them into its generative AI models. But a judge rejected that request, leaving the original lawsuit limited to 333 works.

Sony has now turned those songs into a separate case, and says it may expand it further. The company also claims Udio “admitted that its generative AI models were 'constructed by showing the program a vast amount of different kinds of sound recordings,'” including material from YouTube.

Meanwhile, UMG and Warner Music Group have settled with Udio and are now partnering with the company, even as the broader music industry continues to press copyright claims over training data.

Sony is asking the court to block Udio from infringing its works and to award up to $150,000 per work infringed.