Universal Music and Sony Refuse to Let Suno Distribute AI Tracks Outside Its App

Suno's licensing talks with Universal Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment have hit a dead end. The sides cannot agree on a key question: whether users may freely distribute tracks created with artificial intelligence outside the app itself.

According to the Financial Times, Universal insists that AI music stay inside services like Suno and not spread freely across the internet. Suno's position is the exact opposite: the company wants users to be able to share their tracks anywhere, including social networks, streaming platforms and video hosting sites. This fundamental split is what blocks any licensing agreement.

Suno is one of the best-known tools for generating AI music. The service lets anyone create a complete track from a text description: just type "sad jazz about a Friday evening" or "energetic pop for the gym," and within seconds you have a song with vocals, instrumentation and a verse-chorus structure. That simplicity made Suno popular, with millions of users, and at the same time turned it into one of the music industry's biggest headaches.

In June 2024, the world's largest labels, Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group, filed a joint copyright infringement lawsuit against Suno. The core allegation: the company trained its model on copyrighted music without the rights holders' permission and without any payment. The case has not concluded, and against that backdrop the parties' attempts to agree on licensing take on special significance, and special difficulty.

The disagreement over distribution rights is not a mere technical detail. For the major labels, it is a question of control over distribution. If Suno users can freely upload AI tracks to YouTube, TikTok, Spotify and Apple Music, those tracks will effectively compete with commercial releases, at a price of zero for the consumer. Universal and Sony want any music built on their catalogs to stay in a closed loop and not reach the open ecosystem.

Suno sees it differently. Sharing a finished track is the whole point of the product. A user who cannot post the result to social media or send it to a friend gets a stripped-down experience. A service without sharing is a demo, not a full-fledged tool. The labels' demand essentially says: you can use our musical DNA to create something new, but you cannot share it. For Suno, that condition kills the product.

The situation reflects a systemic conflict across the industry. AI companies build businesses by training models on existing cultural content and monetizing the output. Rights holders demand either a ban or a share of the revenue. Licensing deals are theoretically possible as a middle path, but only if both sides are ready to compromise. Right now their positions are too far apart.

How Suno's story ends, both in court and at the negotiating table, will set the rules for the entire AI music market. If the labels succeed in restricting distribution of AI content, it would significantly reduce the value of such services. If Suno defends the right to free sharing, it will create a precedent that other AI companies will use in disputes with the industry.