UMG Recordings, Inc. v. Uncharted Labs, Inc., No. 1:24-cv-04777, is the copyright infringement action the major record labels filed against Udio in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on June 24, 2024. It was coordinated by the Recording Industry Association of America and filed the same day as the parallel action against Suno in the District of Massachusetts (UMG Recordings v. Suno (AI music training data)). The case is assigned to Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein, pleads copyright infringement under 17 U.S.C. § 101, and carries a plaintiff jury demand (Source: courtlistener.com).
Two of the three majors have since left the case by settlement, making it the first of the 2024 AI music actions to resolve in part by licensing rather than by judgment.
Infobox
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Original plaintiffs | UMG Recordings and Capitol Records; Sony Music Entertainment, Arista Music and Arista Records; Warner Records Inc., Warner Records LLC, Warner Music Inc., Warner Music International Services, Warner Records/SIRE Ventures, Atlantic Recording Corporation and Rhino Entertainment |
| Active plaintiffs (2026) | Sony Music Entertainment, Arista Music, Arista Records LLC |
| Defendants | Uncharted Labs, Inc., d/b/a Udio.com; John Does 1–10 |
| Court | S.D.N.Y., No. 1:24-cv-04777 |
| Judge | Alvin K. Hellerstein |
| Filed | June 24, 2024 |
| Cause | 17 U.S.C. § 101, copyright infringement |
| Nature of suit | 820 Copyright |
| Mediator | Hon. James C. Francis IV (Ret.), appearing on the docket |
| Status | Active as to Sony; status conference set October 23, 2026 |
Settlements
Universal Music Group and Udio announced on October 29, 2025 that they had settled the litigation and entered recorded-music and publishing license agreements, with UMG describing "a compensatory legal settlement" alongside a subscription platform to launch in 2026 trained on "authorized and licensed music" (Source: universalmusic.com). Warner Music Group reached its own settlement with Udio in November 2025 (Source: chatgptiseatingtheworld.com). Neither settlement's financial terms were disclosed.
The settlements resolved the case without any ruling on whether training a music-generation model on unlicensed sound recordings is fair use — the question the parallel Suno case continues to litigate.
The remaining Sony claims
Sony Music Entertainment and its Arista imprints did not settle, and every plaintiff filing on the docket from 2026 is made on their behalf. In May 2026 Sony moved to add 30,442 works identified by running audio fingerprinting against Udio's training data in discovery; the court denied that expansion, and Sony responded by filing a standalone second action asserting 30,117 of the barred recordings (Sony Music v. Udio (second suit, 2026)).
The docket records a second motion to amend the complaint fully briefed in June 2026 — Sony's motion at ECF 160 and 162, Udio's opposition at ECF 169 and 170, and Sony's reply at ECF 172, with a sealed version at ECF 174. A cluster of sealing motions accompanied that briefing, one of which the court granted, vacated the next day so the parties could brief it "in the ordinary course," and then granted again on June 24, 2026 after considering the briefs. Andrew Sanchez filed a declaration for Udio in support of sealing on June 1, 2026. No order resolving the motion to amend appears in the docket entries through August 24, 2026 (Source: courtlistener.com).
Document discovery has been extended twice. A joint letter motion on June 23, 2026 extended the document-production deadline to August 25, 2026 and adjourned the July 10 status conference to September 18. A further joint letter motion on August 23 obtained extensions for certain categories of document production, and on August 24, 2026 Judge Hellerstein adjourned the status conference again, from September 18 to October 23, 2026 (Source: courtlistener.com).
Counsel
Plaintiffs are represented by the Recording Industry Association of America itself together with Latham & Watkins, Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, Kirkland & Ellis, Hueston Hennigan, Cowan Liebowitz & Latman and the Campbell Firm; Brittany N. Lovejoy of Latham & Watkins has filed for Udio and Alexander Perry for the Sony plaintiffs (Source: courtlistener.com).
Open questions
- Whether the second motion to amend has been decided, and if so on what terms, given that the first denial produced the standalone Sony Music v. Udio (second suit, 2026) action.
- Whether the remaining Sony claims settle on the UMG and Warner model or proceed to a fair-use ruling.
- What relationship the surviving case bears to the second action, which the court accepted as related — whether they are consolidated, tried together, or kept separate.
Relationships
- related: Sony Music v. Udio (second suit, 2026) — Sony's July 2026 standalone action asserting the 30,117 works this court barred it from adding here.
- related: UMG Recordings v. Suno (AI music training data) — the parallel action filed the same day against Suno in the District of Massachusetts.
- related: UMG Recordings v. Suno (2026 — the v6 models) — the 2026 Suno action, whose theory turns on the licensed-versus-unlicensed training distinction the Udio settlements were built around.
- defendant: Udio (Uncharted Labs) — Uncharted Labs, Inc.
- litigates: Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) — coordinated the June 2024 actions and appears as counsel of record.
- instance-of: AI Copyright — training-data infringement litigation.
- related: Training Data Walls — the licensing agreements that resolved two of the three plaintiffs' claims.