Universal Music Group and Sony Music have filed a new legal case seeking to force DistroKid to disclose how many AI songs it uploads to streaming services each month, arguing it’s crucial evidence in their ongoing battle against Suno.
In a new action filed Wednesday (Oct. 14), the music giants ratcheted up the pressure on DistroKid, calling the huge DIY distributor “one of the primary conduits by which the streaming market is being flooded with AI-generated recordings.”
Related
In technical terms, the new filing aims to compel DistroKid comply with a subpoena, sent last month, seeking internal metrics on how many AI songs it uploads. UMG and Sony want that information to use as evidence in their massive legal fight with Suno, but say DistroKid “refuses to produce a single document.”
“Suno’s industrial-scale theft will lead to a market flooded with machine-generated recordings that compete with human-created works,” UMG and Sony’s attorneys write in their filings, obtained and first reported by Billboard. “DistroKid’s AI-detection results are direct evidence of that flood.”
Reps for DistroKid and Suno did not immediately return requests for comment.
Wednesday’s new case essentially links up a two-front legal war on unauthorized AI music. UMG and Sony have spent years suing Suno for copyright infringement, claiming it stole millions of real songs to train its machines to spit out millions of new ones. Then last month UMG filed a scathing lawsuit against DistroKid, the world’s largest music distributor, that claimed it was enabling bad actors to upload “AI-generated slop” that’s “polluting the listening experience.”
In the new filing, lodged in Manhattan federal court, UMG and Sony argue that they need information from both companies to fully analyze the AI music landscape. Suno “does not track where its outputs are distributed once they leave Suno’s platform,” they say, but DistroKid “sits upstream of the streaming services” and has admitted it tracks AI usage in songs it uploads to them.
“That makes DistroKid a singular source of relevant evidence,” lawyers for the labels write. “The question of how much AI-generated music is reaching digital platforms, and what it is earning there, is not information that is available from Suno.”
According to UMG and Sony, DistroKid has thus far refused to turn over that information on the grounds that it isn’t relevant to how Suno created its models. But the labels say it is obviously relevant to Suno’s crucial defense of fair use, since that all-important legal issue turns on whether a torrent of AI-generated music is crowding out human-created songs.
“DistroKid has admitted that it measures that flow with an AI-detection tool,” UMG and Sony’s attorneys write. “Whether that flow is harming the market for plaintiffs’ recordings is a question at the center of Suno’s fair use defense.”
The new filing against DistroKid comes just days after the company admitted that it had removed some user uploads in response to the recent UMG “slop” lawsuit. The company has denied any wrongdoing in that case, saying it strongly disputes the label’s accusations.