Universal Music Group (UMG) and Udio, one of the top AI music models on the market, have announced a strategic agreement, thereby settling the companies’ copyright infringement litigation. Now, a press release from UMG states that the two companies will “collaborate on an innovative, new commercial music creation, consumption and streaming experience.”
This deal includes a compensatory legal settlement for UMG, which sued Udio and its rival Suno with the two other major music companies in June 2024, accusing the two platforms of copyright infringement on an “almost unimaginable scale.” At the time, Suno and Udio were using UMG and the other majors’ copyrighted sound recordings to train their models, which could make realistic songs at the click of a button, without a license or any consent in place.
According to the press release, this deal goes beyond just settling the lawsuit — it also provides licensing agreements for recorded music and publishing to UMG, creating a new revenue stream for the company and its signees.
For now, Udio’s existing model will remain available for users as the AI company transitions over to this new model with UMG. Any song created with Udio’s existing model will be “controlled within a walled garden,” according to the rlease, and there are already amendments to Udio in place to make sure that all songs created with it are fingerprinted, filtered and more.
The new collaborative platform will be launched in 2026 and will be “powered by new cutting-edge generative AI technology that will be trained on authorized and licensed music. The new subscription service will transform the user engagement experience, creating a licensed and protected environment to customize, stream and share music responsibly, on the Udio platform,” according to the release.
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This marks UMG’s latest collaboration with an AI music company, and certainly its biggest announcement to date. In the past few years, UMG has struck deals with “responsible” AI music companies, as the company often calls them, including KLAY, SoundLabs and Pro-Rada.
“We couldn’t be more thrilled about this collaboration and the opportunity to work alongside UMG to redefine how AI empowers artists and fans,” said Andrew Sanchez, co-founder & CEO of Udio, in a statement. “This moment brings to life everything we’ve been building toward — uniting AI and the music industry in a way that truly champions artists. Together, we’re building the technological and business landscape that will fundamentally expand what’s possible in music creation and engagement.”
Lucian Grainge, chairman and CEO of UMG, said, “These new agreements with Udio demonstrate our commitment to do what’s right by our artists and songwriters, whether that means embracing new technologies, developing new business models, diversifying revenue streams or beyond. We look forward to working with Andrew who shares our belief that together, we can foster a healthy commercial AI ecosystem in which artists, songwriters, music companies and technology companies can all flourish and create incredible experiences for fans.”
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.billboard.com ’
