storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.ded.94617/gov.uscourts.ded.94617.1.0.pdf

court docs ^

Seems like every time a label sues an AI company, they partner together. So expect Universal to run the pipeline in 3 months

Universal Music Group sued the distribution service DistroKid on Tuesday, claiming in a federal lawsuit that the service infringed on the label’s copyright by pumping out “AI-generated ‘slop’ that siphons revenue and listeners from the legitimate artists and rightsholders.”

In the 52-page lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court in Delaware, UMG and its Capitol Records imprint claimed DistroKid improperly presented itself as a music distributor dedicated solely to serving artist-created work to distribution platforms such as Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube and more. Instead, DistroKid runs afoul of the policies of such streaming services and the mission of the Music Fights Fraud Alliance, of which it’s a member, by building an “AI-slop pipeline” that continued even when the service was told its tracks infringed on artists’ work. It cites an example of a “Lofi Chill“ artist that produced 4,562 tracks within a 12-month period

The lawsuit also claims that DistroKid deliberately infringes upon UMG’s copyright by allowing remixed versions of UMG tracks, such as a “radio edit” version of Sam Smith and Kim Petras’ “Unholy,” to be uploaded to streaming services without proper licensing. The streaming services inform DistroKid about such infringement, UMG claimed, but “Here is where it gets egregious: after acknowledging that it does not have rights in the track, DistroKid continues to distribute that exact same recording” to more streaming services.

Continuing to distribute these infringing tracks allows DistroKid to collect ill-gotten revenues that should have gone to Plaintiffs and other legitimate rightsholders,” the label claimed. “DistroKid cannot claim ignorance (which wouldn’t be a defense anyway). DistroKid has recording-by-recording knowledge and has made a business decision to keep infringing everywhere DistroKid has not yet been caught.”

UMG asked the court for statutory damages, prevent DistroKid from making it seem like their collection of work are primarily “artist-backed releases“ and prevent the distributor from further infringing on any of its copyrighted work

We are distrokid

DistroKid sucks but it’s also necessary to keep indie artists able to release music

Don’t see how DistroKid is liable. They’re just the intermediary right? it’s not their responsibility to police the music they distribute I would think—are ASCAP and BMI?

Genuinely asking how is this UMG’s concern? Wouldn’t it be Apple and Spotify’s job to do a lawsuit like this?

Some friends in the industry were telling me major labels were including blurbs in contracts that basically meant the artist signed away their rights so Suno and other similar companies can freely use their work for their AI software and yet UMG is suing Distrokid for encouraging AI slop?

We don’t hate labels enough as a society

UMG trying to destroy competition

Warned about Lucian Grainge and people laughed

UMG says our AI slop is better

The new Suno model that came out the other day uses label 'licensed' songs to train it

Licensed in quotes because i'm guessing the labels licensed the works but i highly doubt they gave their artists' a choice in the matter

real

f*** distrokid I can’t believe people still use them when there are better options out there

what do you see as good alternatives

cdbaby

wavdistro

tunecore

Emubands

Landr

,, Stem if you can get accepted

Cd baby >>>

This aged quite badly 😬😬😬😬

how yall feel bout united masters

there needs to be something thru like the RIAA that you can upload with no caveats

what’d i miss

not that familiar with united masters