Suno is preparing to launch its first model based on music licensed from rightsholders: something its CEO Mikey Shulman trailed in his recent announcement of the company’s $400m funding round.
Warner Music Group is on board for that, although the small matter of settling lawsuits and agreeing deals with Universal Music Group and Sony Music remains in Suno’s to-do pile, as well as reaching an agreement with Merlin and indies.
In the meantime, Suno’s chief product officer Jack Brody has been continuing the company’s efforts to improve its reputation with the music industry, with a LinkedIn post focusing on “platform integrity and protecting the people behind the music”.
The post runs through Suno’s existing rules “prohibiting users from uploading or distributing content they don’t own or have the rights to use” (and enforcing that) as well as its “training strategies intended to reduce the risk of generating unauthorized reproductions” – for example, not using artist names as a category of training metadata.
There’s news too. “Alongside those efforts, we’re actively developing additional approaches for audio fingerprinting, watermarking, and spam and impersonation detection,” announced Brody.
“In addition, we’re engaging in discussions around AI labeling with our users and creatives at all levels, to understand how to best empower them while respecting privacy.”
“We don’t treat these issues as a compliance exercise. It’s a core part of how we build and it’s led us to put more copyright safeguards in place than traditional music software,” he added. “Not just compared to AI music tools, but compared to all the music tools that preceded them.”
These are good safeguards, and likely the kind that the majors would be expecting as part of any deals with Suno. However, tensions remain around some of their other expectations, which the startup has pushed back on.
Platform integrity is one thing, but UMG in particular is just as concerned about platform boundaries. It wants Suno and similar services to be walled gardens, restricting users from downloading their generated music and putting it on streaming services.
Udio is one of the services that has accepted that vision, sparking a backlash from some users as a result. In February, Suno’s chief music officer Paul Sinclair pushed back strongly on the idea in another LinkedIn post – yes, the platform is playing a big role in Suno’s public communications strategy right now.
Still, Brody’s desire to pitch the company as a responsible, guardrails-building partner is a useful insight into how Suno wants to be seen. How much weight that holds at the negotiating table is something we’ll find out shortly, we suspect.
