Sony Music Entertainment has filed a fresh lawsuit against AI music generator Udio, accusing it of infringing the copyright of more than 30,000 songs. According to The Verge AI, the complaint landed in a New York court on Monday and covers a catalog that runs from Elvis Presley’s “Hound Dog” to Beyoncé’s “Say My Name” and Harry Styles’ “As It Was.” And Sony says that list is only the start. The filing calls it “only a small portion” of the works Udio allegedly copied.
This is a big escalation in the fight between the major labels and AI music startups, and it’s worth understanding how we got here.
What happened
Here’s the short version, as reported by The Verge AI:
- In 2024, Sony, Universal Music Group, and Warner Records sued both Udio and rival generator Suno for copyright infringement.
- Through discovery, Sony got access to Udio’s training data and used “audio fingerprinting” to identify thousands more of its songs allegedly used to train the models.
- Sony asked to add over 30,000 songs to that original case. A judge rejected the motion, keeping the first lawsuit capped at 333 works.
- So Sony repackaged those 30,000-plus songs into a brand-new lawsuit. The company says it could expand the list even further.
Sony is asking the court to block Udio from infringing its catalog and is seeking up to $150,000 per work. Do the math on 30,000 songs and you’re looking at potential damages in the billions.
The evidence Sony is leaning on
What stands out here is that Sony is quoting Udio’s own words back at it. The company 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 pulled from YouTube, according to The Verge AI.
That admission is the heart of the case. The legal question isn’t really whether AI models learn from existing music. It’s whether feeding copyrighted recordings into training data counts as infringement, or whether it’s protected under fair use. Sony wants a court to say the former.
Why this matters
The timing is what makes this interesting. Two of Sony’s original co-plaintiffs have already walked away from the fight.
UMG and Warner Music Group both settled with Udio and are now partnering with the company as the music industry warms up to AI. That leaves Sony standing more or less alone, pushing the hardest legal line while its rivals cut deals.
So the industry is splitting into two camps:
- Partner and license. UMG and Warner are betting they can shape AI music on their terms and take a cut, rather than fight a technology that isn’t going away.
- Litigate first. Sony is signaling it wants leverage, a bigger payout, or a legal precedent before it agrees to anything.
Both moves are really about the same thing: setting the price of music in the AI era.
What to watch next
For anyone building or using AI music tools, this case is a signal worth tracking. A few things to keep an eye on:
- Discovery is doing the damage. Sony didn’t guess about those 30,000 songs. It found them inside Udio’s own training data. That should make every AI company nervous about what discovery might surface in their own litigation.
- The fair use question is still open. Courts haven’t settled whether training on copyrighted audio is legal. A ruling here could ripple across text, image, and video models too.
- Settlements set the market. The UMG and Warner deals hint that licensed AI music is coming. The terms Sony eventually accepts, whether through a win or a settlement, may become the template the whole industry follows.
Udio isn’t backing down quietly, and Sony has made clear it’s willing to keep expanding the case. This one is far from over. You can read the full breakdown, including the complete song list in the court filing, at the original report from The Verge AI.