Suno, the AI ​​company facing a copyright suit against record companies, has released a mobile app

AI music generation platform Suno has had a year of ups and downs.

After raising $125 million in the financing round that informed the company $500 millionand hitting 12 million users on its site, resulting in the creation of 10 new AI-generated tracks every second, the company behind what is considered one of the best AI text-to-music generators is now facing copyright infringement case to major music companies.

However, that doesn’t stop the Massachusetts-headquartered company from moving forward with new products.

Suno announced on Monday (July 1) that it has launched its first mobile app. The ability to create full-length songs in minutes, by entering only text descriptions and (optionally) lyrics will be easily accessible to smartphone users.

Currently, the Suno mobile app is only available on Apple Store in the US, but the company says it will soon launch globally on Android devices as well.

“Suno is designed for new music, new uses, and new artists,” the CEO Mike Shulman wrote in a blog post. “We’re happy to be in your pocket whenever the time comes, and give you a rich set of tools to capture it.”

However, that “rich toolkit” is not without controversy. In a lawsuit filed in US federal court late last month, record companies owned by three music executives – Sony Music Entertainment, World Music Group again Warner Music Group – accused Suno of using copyrighted songs without permission to train his AI.

A legal complaint by record companies warned that, if they were allowed to use copyrighted works without permission, “artificial music plays could flood the market with machine-generated content that will directly compete, cheapen, and ultimately crowd out original recorded sound.”

“AI companies, like all other businesses, must comply with laws that protect human intelligence,” the complaint said. “There is nothing that exempts AI technology from copyright law or excuses AI companies from playing by the rules.”

“Artificial music games may flood the market with machine-generated content that will directly compete with, cheapen, and ultimately crowd out original recorded audio.”

Record a formal corporate complaint against Suno

However, the assertion that AI developers must obtain permission to use copyrighted works has not been decided by US courts.

AI technology companies have argued that their use of copyrighted works should be given “fair use” under the law – something that music companies and other copyright holders have strongly contested.

“Fair use is not found if the output seeks to ‘alter’ the copied work. And Suno [has] in their words, they agreed that that is exactly what they intended,” he said Recording Industry Association of America (The RIAA), who linked the case against Suno, and another, similar case against an AI music generator The sound.

Shulman has publicly defended Suno against allegations from record companies.

“Suno’s goal is to enable everyone to make music. Our technology is changing; it is designed to produce completely new output, not to memorize and update existing content. That is why we do not allow users’ information to refer to certain artists,” said a Suno executive in a statement obtained by MBW.

“Suno is designed for new music, new uses, and new artists.”

Mikey Shulman, Suno

Suno is well equipped to defend itself against allegations of copyright infringement.

Earlier this year, the company proposed $125 million in a Series B funding round that included large corporate firms Lightspeed Ventures again Founder’s Collection.

In interview no Rolling Stone this spring, the first investor in Suno – Antonio Rodriguez VC firm Matrix Partners – indicated that he was prepared that Suno would face copyright charges, and suggested that this was “a risk that we had to write down when we invested in the company.”

In their lawsuits against Suno, the record companies cited Rodriguez’s words as evidence that the company intentionally used copyrighted music to train its AI models.

Nevertheless, the infusion of capital has given Suno an enhanced ability to grow its business. In May, the company announced its first payment plan for music creators – a $1 million money to be given to the creators of the most popular AI-generated tracks on the Suno platform.Music Business Worldwide