AI Music News

Suno asks a federal court to seal the number of audio files it trained on

• Suno filed a May 29, 2026 motion to impound a single figure, the total number of audio files used to train its AI music model.
• CTO Georg Kucsko argues the count is not public and that rivals could use it to benchmark their own systems against Suno's.
• Journalist Matthew Lee of Inner City Press is pushing the court to unseal the number as a matter of public concern.

UK music-tech funding fell to £68.8M in 2025, a new MTUK report warns

• MTUK's second annual Sound Investments report finds UK music-tech funding peaked at £183m in 2021 and fell to £68.8m in 2025.
• Over the same period, overall UK tech funding dropped only 4.4%.
• Seed-stage music-tech investment grew from £8.4m in 2020 to £22.1m in 2025.

Anthropic raises $65 billion days after music publishers drop a key claim

• Anthropic raised $65 billion on May 28, 2026, at a $965 billion post-money valuation, ahead of OpenAI's $852 billion mark
• The round landed the same week music publishers, including Concord and Universal, dropped their vicarious infringement claim against Anthropic
• That retreat traces to the Supreme Court's pro-Cox ruling, which narrowed secondary copyright liability across AI cases

ABBA's Björn Ulvaeus says creators are 'not in the room' as AI laws take shape

• CISAC President Björn Ulvaeus, of ABBA, used the body's annual report to say human creators' voices are 'not being heard' in AI copyright talks
• Ulvaeus said creators 'are not in the room' as governments write new AI laws and run consultations
• He warned creators are 'being left out of the economic picture' and 'not being remunerated' for work used to train AI

Suno could face $9 billion in damages as labels add 61,026 tracks to the case

• Sony Music and Universal Music asked the court to expand their copyright case against Suno from 560 recordings to 61,026
• At the US statutory maximum of $150,000 per work, that raises Suno's potential damages from $84 million to more than $9.1 billion
• Sony is making a parallel move against Udio, seeking to add roughly 30,000 more recordings to that case

Top 5 AI music news of the week (25th – 31st May 2026)

AI music news (May 25–31 2026) ✓ AI helps musician with Parkinson's finish his album. ✓ GEMA v Suno delayed. ✓ Tonada skips PRO royalties. → Read more!

GEMA vs Suno verdict pushed from June to July 31, 2026

• The Munich Regional Court postponed its decision in GEMA's copyright case against Suno from June 12 to July 31, 2026.
• The court cited internal administrative reasons, so the delay says nothing about the likely outcome.
• A GEMA win would be the first major European ruling that AI platforms need a license to train on copyrighted music.

Parkinson's took his guitar playing, so AI helped Samuel Smith finish his album

• Samuel Smith, a 49-year-old London musician with Parkinson's, finished his album "The Art of Letting Go" after the disease eroded his guitar playing.
• He used AI song generators Suno and Udio to turn hummed melodies into demos, sometimes after 150 attempts, then handed those demos to live session players.
• Smith wrote all his own lyrics and music; the AI tools built reference demos, not the final studio recordings.

Music publishers drop vicarious claim against Anthropic after Cox ruling

• Judge Eumi K. Lee approved the publishers' voluntary dismissal of their vicarious infringement claim against Anthropic.
• The retreat follows the Supreme Court's pro-Cox ruling, which narrowed secondary copyright liability.
• The amended complaint is identical to the original January 2026 filing, minus the vicarious claim.

Jazz Is Dead launches "Played By Humans," a free stamp for human-made music

• Jazz Is Dead launched Played By Humans, a free platform that certifies tracks made by human artists.
• Artists and labels can apply a Played By Humans stamp to prove their work is not AI-generated.
• Fans can upload any song to check whether a person or AI created it.

Lucian Grainge draws UMG's AI line: opt-in, human artists, no 'AI slop'

• Universal Music Group CEO Lucian Grainge called artist opt-in protections for name, likeness, and voice 'critical' at Britain's GREATER Together trade mission in Los Angeles on May 21, 2026
• Grainge publicly backed UMG's new Spotify deal that lets fans create AI covers and remixes as a paid Premium add-on, with participating artists sharing the revenue
• He distanced UMG from AI 'functional music,' saying 'I'm not in the functional music industry' and that AI should be a tool for human artists, not a replacement

Music Biz 2026: the industry hunts for the line between good and bad AI

• Music Biz 2026 ran at the Renaissance Waverly Hotel in Atlanta, with sync licensing as the dominant theme.
• Counterfight co-founder Noah Schäftlmeier said the aim is finding the bridge between good AI and bad AI for artists.
• Counterfight scans social platforms to catch businesses using music without a license, then chases payment.