THE BIG NEWS: Universal Music Group and artificial intelligence music service Udio reached a landmark agreement last week to end their lawsuit – the first major settlement in the battle over the future of AI music. Here’s everything you need to know.
The deal, announced Wednesday, will end UMG’s allegations that Udio broke the law by training its AI models on vast troves of copyrighted songs — an accusation made in dozens of other lawsuits filed against booming AI firms by book authors, news outlets, movie studios and visual artists. The agreement involves both a “compensatory” settlement for past sins and an ongoing partnership for a new, more limited subscription AI service that pays fees to UMG and its artists.
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-The agreement is much more than a legal settlement, Udio CEO Andrew Sanchez told Billboard’s Kristin Robinson in a detailed question-and-answer session just hours after the news broke: “We’re making a new market here, which we think is an enormous one.”
-The deal between UMG and Udio will resolve their legal battle, but broader litigation involving rival AI firm Suno and both Sony Music and Warner Music is still very much pending. Are more settlements coming? Does the deal impact the case? Go read my look-ahead analysis of the ongoing court battle.
-Will AI do more harm than good for the music business? That’s the question Billboard’s Glenn Peoples is asking – and financial analysts don’t have a clear answer. Some believe AI’s negatives outweigh its positives, while others see mostly upside. Maybe it’s just too early to know, Glenn says: “In the near term, expect more deals like UMG’s partnership with Udio. Over the long term, expect to be surprised.”
-Artist advocates are already demanding answers about how exactly this whole thing will work. According to the Music Artists Coalition, talk of “partnership” and “consent” are all well and good, but details are what matter: “We have to make sure it doesn’t come at the expense of the people who actually create the music,” MAC founder Irving Azoff said.
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-To put it lightly, Udio subscribers were not big fans of the settlement, which saw the company immediately disable downloads – even for songs that users created long before the deal was reached. After two days of outrage and threats of legal action, Udio said it would open a 48-hour window for users to download their songs. But with wholesale changes to the platform coming soon, will that be enough to satisfy them?
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Other top stories this week…
AINT OVER YET – Drake is now formally appealing last month’s court ruling that dismissed his defamation lawsuit against Universal Music Group (UMG) over Kendrick Lamar’s diss track “Not Like Us,” prolonging a messy legal drama that has captivated the music industry and, at times, drawn ridicule in the hip-hop world.
DIDDY APPEAL – Sean “Diddy” Combs is appealing too – and he’ll get a fast-track process to do it. With such cases sometimes lasting years, his lawyers argued that he could be nearly finished with his three-ish year prison sentence by the time an appellate court rules on his prostitution convictions.
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POT SHOTS – Offset is facing a new civil assault lawsuit claiming he punched a security guard in the face at a cannabis dispensary in Los Angeles after being asked to show his I.D., sending the staffer to the emergency room.
MASSIVE FINE – Fugees rapper Pras Michel must forfeit a whopping $64 million to the government following his conviction on illegal foreign lobbying and conspiracy charges, a federal judge says, overruling his protests that it’s “grossly disproportionate.”
DRAKE SUED – Drake and internet personality Adin Ross are facing a class action accusing them of using “deceptive, fraudulent and unfair” practices to promote online sweepstake casino Stake and “encourage impressionable users to gamble,” including using house money to do it.
DRAKE NOT SUED – Another class action, this one against Spotify, claims that the platform has turned a “blind eye” to streaming fraud and allowed billions of fake plays. It alleges that Drake is one of the most-boosted artists, but the rapper is not named as a defendant nor accused of wrongdoing.
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FAIR TRADE? Cam’ron is suing J. Cole over allegations he reneged on a deal to swap featured credits – claiming he provided a verse for Cole’s “Ready ’24” but that Cole repeatedly declined to do the same, or even appear on Killa Cam’s podcast.
CUSTODY TRUCE – Halle Bailey and DDG temporarily agreed to share custody of their son and drop domestic violence claims against each other, putting a halt to the musicians’ messy legal battle after months of back and forth.
NEWJEANS, SAME LABEL – A Korean court issued a ruling rejecting NewJeans’ attempt to break away from its label ADOR, dealing a major victory to the HYBE subsidiary in its closely-watched legal battle with the chart-topping K-pop group.
DEPOSITION DRAMA – A judge says Tory Lanez must sit for a deposition in litigation stemming from his alleged shooting of Megan Thee Stallion in 2020. The case was filed by Megan against gossip blogger Milagro Gramz, who she claims spread falsehoods about the shooting.
NOT VERY CASH MONEY – Former Hot Boys member Turk is being sued by a concert promoter over online threats that supposedly threatened to derail a Cash Money Records reunion tour featuring Birdman and Juvenile
UGLY DIVORCE – Sia and her estranged husband are fighting over custody of their child amid divorce proceedings — and the crossfire is getting ugly. Among other claims, he says the pop star is a drug addict who can’t care for a baby, and she says he was investigated over child pornography.
