AI-Generated Music Copyright After Suno and Udio: What Musicians Own and Can Commercially License

The Ownership Gap Nobody Told You About

You generated a track with Suno or Udio. It sounds great. You want to release it on Spotify, pitch it for a sync deal, or use it in a commercial. The platform's terms say you "own" the output if you're on a paid plan. So you're covered, right?

Not exactly. There is a gap — a significant one — between what AI music platforms claim in their terms of service and what copyright law actually grants you. That gap has real consequences for musicians, producers, and labels who are making commercial decisions with these tools right now. In this guide, we break down what the RIAA lawsuits against Suno and Udio mean for your ownership claims, what the U.S. Copyright Office says about AI-generated music, what platform terms actually give you, and how to think about commercial licensing risk when AI is part of your creative process.

What the RIAA Lawsuits Against Suno and Udio Actually Allege

On June 24, 2024, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) announced two copyright infringement lawsuits against the leading AI music generation platforms. The case against Suno, Inc. was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts. The case against Uncharted Labs, Inc. (developer of Udio) was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. The plaintiffs include Sony Music Entertainment, UMG Recordings, Inc., and Warner Records, Inc.

The core allegation is that both platforms copied and ingested "decades worth of the world's most popular sound recordings" to train their AI models without seeking permission or paying licensing fees. The complaints describe this as "willful copyright infringement on an almost unimaginable scale." The RIAA seeks declaratory judgments that the services infringed plaintiffs' copyrights, injunctions barring future infringement, and damages for the unauthorized copying that has already occurred (RIAA press release, June 24, 2024).

The complaints also preemptively rebut the fair use defense, arguing that the platforms "offer imitative machine-generated music — not human creativity or expression" and therefore cannot claim the protections of fair use doctrine. This is a critical point for musicians who use these tools: the lawsuits target the platforms' training data practices, not the users who generate outputs. But the outcomes of these cases could reshape what AI music platforms can offer and what rights users actually receive.

By late 2025, the landscape had shifted significantly. Warner Music Group settled with Suno in November 2025, and Universal Music Group settled with Udio in October 2025. These settlements reportedly involve licensing agreements that give platforms legitimate access to label catalogs — but the underlying legal questions about training data infringement and output ownership remain unresolved for the broader AI music ecosystem. As we have discussed in our guide on what musicians can do when their music is used to train AI, the tension between AI platforms and rights holders is far from settled.

The Copyright Office's Position: Purely AI-Generated Music Is Not Copyrightable

The U.S. Copyright Office has been clear and consistent on one point: works generated entirely by artificial intelligence, without sufficient human authorship, are not eligible for copyright protection. This position was first formalized in the Copyright Registration Guidance issued on March 16, 2023, which requires applicants to disclose AI-generated content in works submitted for registration.

In January 2025, the Copyright Office released Part 2 of its Report on Copyright and Artificial Intelligence, titled "Copyrightability." The Report confirms that "the outputs of generative AI can be protected by copyright only where a human author has determined sufficient expressive elements." The Office clarified that this can include situations where a human-authored work is perceptible in an AI output or a human makes creative arrangements or modifications of the output — but not "the mere provision of prompts" (Copyright Office blog, February 6, 2025).

The Report also notes that "the vast majority of commenters agreed that existing law is adequate in this area and that material generated wholly by AI is not copyrightable." The Office found no need for legislative changes to extend copyright protection to AI-generated works.

This position was reinforced by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals in Thaler v. Perlmutter, which affirmed in March 2025 that a non-human machine cannot be an author under the U.S. Copyright Act. The Supreme Court subsequently denied certiorari, leaving the appellate ruling in place.

For musicians, the practical implication is straightforward: if you type a text prompt into Suno or Udio and the platform generates a complete track with no further human creative input, that track is not copyrightable. You cannot register it with the Copyright Office. You cannot sue someone for copying it. You have no exclusive rights to it under federal copyright law.

What Suno and Udio's Terms Say You Own — Versus What You Actually Own

Here is where the ownership gap becomes most visible.

Suno's Terms of Service (last revised March 26, 2026) assign paid subscribers "all of [Suno's] right, title and interest" in outputs generated during an active subscription. The platform previously told users plainly: "If you make songs while subscribed to the Pro or Premier plan, you own the songs." However, the terms have since been updated to state that "Suno is ultimately responsible for the output itself, though you help guide it" — a significant repositioning of who bears legal responsibility.

More importantly, the same terms explicitly disclaim any warranty that copyright will "vest" in the output. They acknowledge that "due to the nature of machine learning, your Output may not be unique across users and the Service may generate the same or similar output for a third party." This means Suno cannot guarantee that the track you generated is unique, that it does not infringe someone else's rights, or that you will be able to assert copyright over it.

The terms also include an indemnification clause requiring users to "defend, indemnify, and hold harmless" Suno from claims arising from the generation or use of any output. If your AI-generated track triggers a copyright claim, you — not Suno — bear the legal and financial risk.

Udio's terms follow a similar pattern, granting commercial use rights to paid subscribers while disclaiming warranties about output uniqueness and non-infringement.

The gap is this: the platform gives you a contractual right to use the output commercially, but it cannot give you what it does not have — a valid copyright in a work that the Copyright Office says is not copyrightable without sufficient human authorship. You get a license to use the track, but you do not get the bundle of exclusive rights (reproduction, distribution, derivative works, public performance) that constitute copyright ownership.

Additionally, both platforms require users to grant them broad, perpetual licenses to use user submissions — including original lyrics or audio you upload — for training and service improvement. This means that if you write your own lyrics and feed them into Suno, Suno retains a perpetual, irrevocable right to use those lyrics to train its models, potentially generating similar outputs for other users.

When Can You Copyright Music Made with AI?

The Copyright Office's guidance does not categorically exclude all music created with AI assistance. The key distinction is between AI-generated material and AI-assisted creation.

Copyright protection is available where a human author has determined sufficient expressive elements. For musicians, this could include:

• Writing original lyrics, melodies, or chord progressions and using AI to arrange, produce, or enhance them
• Making creative modifications to AI-generated audio — editing, rearranging, remixing, or layering with human-performed elements
• Creating a compilation or arrangement where the selection and ordering of AI-generated elements reflects human creative judgment

What does not qualify is generating a track by typing a prompt and accepting the output wholesale. The Copyright Office has been explicit that "the mere provision of prompts" is not sufficient human authorship.

If you want to register a work that contains both human-authored and AI-generated material, you must disclose the AI-generated portions in your registration application and limit your copyright claim to the human-authored elements. Failing to do so can result in the Copyright Office refusing registration or cancelling it later. For a deeper dive into the registration process for AI-assisted works, see our guide on AI-assisted writing and copyright, which covers similar registration principles that apply across creative disciplines.

For musicians who use AI as one tool in a broader creative process — similar to how visual artists are navigating AI training and copyright issues — the path to protectable works exists, but it requires intentional human creative contribution beyond prompting.

What You Can (and Can't) Copyright in an AI-Assisted Song

Let's get concrete. Here's how the Copyright Office's framework applies to the specific components of a song you might create using AI music tools:

Lyrics You Wrote Yourself

If you wrote the lyrics—by hand, in a notebook, or even using a word processor—those lyrics are human-authored and copyrightable. It doesn't matter if you used AI to generate the instrumental track underneath them. The lyrics are yours. This is true even if you used a tool like Copilot to brainstorm ideas, as long as the final lyrics reflect your own creative expression rather than a verbatim AI output. For more on how this works in the writing context, see our guide on AI-assisted writing and copyright for authors.

A Melody or Chord Progression You Composed

If you composed the melody or chord progression yourself—on a guitar, piano, or in a DAW—and then fed it into an AI tool for arrangement or production, the melody and chords are your human-authored expression. If they remain perceptible in the final output, you can claim copyright in those elements. This falls under the Copyright Office's "expressive inputs" category.

A Track Entirely Generated by Suno or Udio From a Text Prompt

If you typed "upbeat indie folk song about heartbreak" into Suno and the platform generated the entire track—melody, harmony, rhythm, lyrics, vocals—that output is not copyrightable by you. The Copyright Office's position is clear: prompting alone, even with detailed instructions, does not make you the author of the resulting output. Anyone could copy that track, and you would have no copyright claim to stop them.

Arrangement and Production Decisions You Made

If you took an AI-generated stem and then made creative decisions about how to arrange, mix, edit, sequence, or layer it with other elements—human-recorded vocals, live instrumentation, your own beat-making—those arrangement and modification decisions may be copyrightable. The Copyright Office's Report specifically noted that AI tools enabling musicians and sound engineers to modify recordings can produce copyrightable human contributions. But the protection extends only to your human-authored modifications and the creative arrangement—not to the underlying AI-generated material itself.

Vocals You Performed

If you sang the vocals—even over an AI-generated backing track—your vocal performance is human-authored and protectable as a sound recording. This is separate from the composition copyright. Note that if you're using AI voice cloning to generate vocals, different rules apply—see our article on AI voice clones and the NO FAKES Act for that analysis.

How to Register Songs With AI-Generated Components

The Copyright Office issued registration guidance in March 2023 that remains in effect. The rule is simple to state and sometimes tricky to apply: if your work contains more than a de minimis amount of AI-generated material, you must disclose that fact in your registration application and provide a brief statement describing the human author's contribution.

Here's what this means in practice for musicians:

1. Disclose the AI-generated content. When you file your registration, you must indicate which portions of the work were generated by AI. You cannot simply register the entire track as if you wrote all of it. Failing to disclose AI-generated material can result in the Office refusing or cancelling your registration, which could compromise your ability to enforce your copyright in litigation.
2. Describe your human contribution. You need to provide a brief statement explaining what you did. For example: "Lyrics and vocal melody by the author; instrumental track generated by AI." Or: "Author composed the chord progression and performed all vocals; AI tool used for arrangement and production."
3. Claim only what you authored. Your registration covers the human-authored elements only. The AI-generated portions are in the public domain—anyone can use them. This means if someone copies the exact AI-generated instrumental from your track, you likely cannot stop them based on copyright. But if they copy your lyrics, your melody, or your specific arrangement, you can enforce your rights in those elements.
4. Deposit requirements. The deposit copy you submit should reflect the work as published or as you intend to register it. The Office has not issued music-specific deposit guidance for AI works, but the general principle is that the deposit should correspond to the human-authored material you're claiming.

Importantly, the Copyright Office has confirmed that hundreds of registrations for works incorporating AI-generated material have been granted since the 2023 guidance was issued, according to the Skadden analysis of the Part 2 Report. The Office is not refusing all AI-adjacent works—it's applying the human-authorship requirement on a case-by-case basis. The key is honesty and specificity about what you did versus what the AI did.

Commercial Licensing Risks for AI-Generated Tracks

If you are planning to commercially release or sync-license music created with AI tools, you face several distinct risk layers:

1. No Copyright Means No Exclusivity

If your track is purely AI-generated, you have no copyright to license. A sync licensee typically requires an exclusive or semi-exclusive license. Without copyright, you cannot grant exclusivity. Anyone else could use the same or a similar output — and as Suno's terms acknowledge, the platform may generate identical or similar outputs for other users.

2. Training Data Infringement Risk

The RIAA lawsuits allege that Suno and Udio trained their models on copyrighted sound recordings without permission. If a court ultimately rules that the training data was infringing, outputs generated from those models could face downstream challenges. While the settlements between major labels and the platforms may mitigate some of this risk going forward, tracks generated before settlements were reached may exist in a legal gray zone.

3. Output Similarity to Existing Works

AI models trained on existing music may produce outputs that inadvertently resemble protected recordings. Suno's terms explicitly acknowledge this possibility. If your AI-generated track sounds substantially similar to an existing copyrighted work, you could face a copyright infringement claim — and the indemnification clauses in the platform terms mean you, not the platform, bear the cost of defending against it.

4. Distributor and Platform Rejection

Major streaming platforms and music distributors are increasingly scrutinizing AI-generated content. Deezer reported receiving 50,000 AI-generated tracks daily in 2025, with up to 70% of streams on AI content coming from fraudulent bot networks. Distributors may refuse to accept tracks that cannot demonstrate sufficient human authorship or that lack clear rights chains.

5. Disclosure Obligations

Depending on the platform and jurisdiction, you may have disclosure obligations when distributing AI-generated music. Some platforms and regulators are moving toward requiring explicit labeling of AI-generated content. As we have covered in our guide on FTC AI disclosure rules for creators, failing to disclose AI involvement can create regulatory and reputational risk.

Actionable Next Steps

If you are a musician, producer, or label considering commercial use of AI-generated music, here is what we recommend:

Audit your creative process. Document the human creative contributions you make beyond prompting. If you write lyrics, compose melodies, arrange sections, or perform any elements yourself, keep records. These contributions are what make portions of your work copyrightable.

Register only what you can protect. When filing with the Copyright Office, disclose AI-generated material and limit your claim to human-authored elements. Attempting to register purely AI-generated works will result in rejection and could undermine your credibility in future registrations.

Read the platform terms carefully. Understand that "commercial use rights" granted by Suno or Udio are not the same as copyright ownership. Know that you are indemnifying the platform against claims arising from your use of outputs.

Avoid relying solely on AI-generated tracks for commercial releases. If you plan to pitch for sync deals or seek distribution through major platforms, ensure there is a clear chain of human authorship and ownership that you can document.

Get legal review before commercial release. If you are investing in a release that incorporates AI-generated material, have an attorney review the rights picture — including platform terms, copyrightability of your specific contribution, and potential infringement exposure — before you commit to distribution or licensing.

The AI music landscape is evolving rapidly. The RIAA lawsuits, the Copyright Office's reports, and the platform settlements are all shaping a legal framework that is still very much in formation. What is clear today is that musicians cannot assume AI-generated outputs carry the same ownership rights as traditionally created music. Understanding the gap between platform terms and copyright law is the first step to protecting your work and your business.