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The American Federation of Musicians (AFM), a union for session musicians, is suing Universal Music Group (UMG) and Warner Music Group (WMG) for breaching their collective bargaining agreement over use of their music by AI programs. In the lawsuit filed on Friday (June 5), AFM claim that the major labels\u2019 recent licensing training with Suno and Udio, two prominent AI music companies, have not been sharing proceeds with the union, as required in their agreement to compensate members for \u201cnew uses\u201d of their music.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe AFM brings this lawsuit because defendants, two of the largest music companies in the world, have licensed sound recordings on which AFM-represented musicians have worked, without compensation or credit, to two AI companies,\u201d reads the lawsuit. \u201cAt the same time, they have refused to provide information to the AFM about which recordings and whose work is being licensed.\u201d<\/p>\n
It continues: \u201cWhile the defendants protected their own interests and created a significant source of new revenue with the retrospective settlements and prospective licenses, they have refused to compensate the musicians whose work \u2014 created with their own instruments and through their talent, creativity, and hard work \u2013 is fed into AI machines for profit.\u201d<\/p>\n
This stems back to 2024 when UMG and WMG\u2014along with Sony Music Entertainment\u2014sued<\/a> Suno and Udio, alleging the companies illegally trained their AI models on millions of copyrighted recordings. By the fall of 2025, both record labels struck deals<\/a> with the company, allowing them to train a new model on licensed work and claiming that artists and songwriters would be compensated if they choose to opt in to AI deals, and would retain \u201cfull control\u201d over how their music, likeness, and other copyrights are used.<\/p>\n