Warner Music Group Signs Historic Licensing Agreement with AI Music Startup Suno

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The AI music service Suno has made a huge breakthrough, as they have just announced a new licensing deal with Warner Music Group (WMG), allowing their models to train on real and fully licensed songs of WMG artists.

This is one of the first collaborations between a large record label and an AI songwriting company, and it signals the beginning of more organized and rights-conscious AI development in the music industry.

According to the agreement, the artists from Warner Music Group can voluntarily opt in to allow Suno to use their music, voice likeness, name, and compositions in its next-generation models. Both firms declare that this collaboration is the step towards a safer and more transparent AI system that fairly compensates rights holders.

Robert Kyncl, the CEO of Warner Music Group, highlighted the importance of the deal, saying it is “smashing proof that AI can be pro-artist when it is based on licensed and fairly paid creative content.”

"This historic agreement with Suno is a win for the creative community in general," Kyncl told us, citing the fast growth of Suno’s audience and revenues.

Under the deal, Suno will introduce new and licensed models in 2025 and discontinue its current ones. It will also limit downloads to only paid subscribers, raise prices, and restrict the number of files that an individual can export, as it tries to curb the flow of AI-produced songs to streaming sites.

This news follows closely on the heels of WMG settling a similar lawsuit and striking up a partnership with competing AI music generator Udio, as well as Universal Music settling with Udio just weeks ago.

Both Suno and Udio were sued last year by the world’s largest record labels for allegedly web-scraping huge amounts of copyrighted music in order to create millions of derivative songs. Whereas Universal has settled its dispute with Udio and is currently in litigation with Suno, Sony Music is still proceeding with its lawsuits against both companies. With this new deal, Warner becomes the first major label to officially partner with Suno—a move that precedes what could potentially be a new era of AI-assisted creativity.