A.I. Music Giant Suno Tries to Play Nice With Record Labels

Since it arrived four years ago with the technology to generate fresh songs from a few words of text, the A.I.music company Suno has been both an innovator and a deeply divisive force in the music industry.To Suno, its simple interface is a tool and a toy to inspire creativity in novices and professionals alike.

More than 100 million people have created songs with the service, Suno says, and two million pay for an upgraded plan that includes commercial rights to the music they make with it.“People feel really good when they’re creative,” Suno’s chief executive, Mikey Shulman, said in an interview.“The company exists to let people feel those warm and fuzzy feelings of being creative.”But to the major record companies that are pursuing it in litigation, Suno is little more than a pirate, violating copyright law on an industrial scale.

And as A.I.moves rapidly into the musical mainstream, a growing number of artists have expressed fears that their work will be drowned out by a flood of generic slop enabled by services like it.Now, Suno wants to reset the industry debate and reposition itself as a fully fledged partner to labels and artists.

The latest iteration of Suno’s service, released on Wednesday, is based on an A.I.model that was trained on songs licensed from the Warner Music Group, the home of Madonna, Led Zeppelin and Lizzo, after the music giant exited a lawsuit filed with other major labels and struck a deal that Warner executives say will open up new revenue streams for its artists.“By being early, you have a seat at the table,” said Robert Kyncl, Warner Music’s chief, “instead of just sitting and watching what’s happening and pursuing lawsuits.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

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