The trade association representing the US recorded-music industry, whose members include the three major label groups — Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, and Warner Music Group.
Role in AI litigation
The RIAA coordinated the two suits filed on 24 June 2024 against AI music generators: UMG Recordings v. Suno in the District of Massachusetts and a parallel action against Udio in the Southern District of New York. Coordinating through a trade body rather than filing separately lets the labels present a unified position on the legal question while each asserts its own catalogue.
The Suno complaint (Complaint, UMG Recordings et al. v. Suno, Inc. (D. Mass., June 24, 2024)) sets out the evidentiary approach the coordinated actions rest on. Because the defendants declined to identify their training data — Suno called it "confidential business information" while asserting fair use, which the plaintiffs read as conceding the structure of the claim — the complaint establishes copying from outputs: targeted prompts producing outputs matching specific recordings, transposed side-by-side musical transcriptions, and the reproduction of producer tags such as CashMoneyAP's and Jason Derulo's spoken name, which carry no expressive function and could only come from the recordings.
The complaints also position the labels as licensors rather than opponents of the technology, citing a "track record of embracing innovation" through catalogue licences to streaming, user-generated content, social, fitness, gaming, and metaverse platforms — framing the dispute as concerning permission rather than the technology itself.
Relationships
- litigates: UMG Recordings v. Suno (AI music training data) — coordinated the labels' action
- related: Suno, AI Copyright, Media, Journalism & Entertainment — AI Deployment, Complaint, UMG Recordings et al. v. Suno, Inc. (D. Mass., June 24, 2024)