AFM v. UMG / Warner, AI licensing without musician pay

Background

On June 5, 2026, the American Federation of Musicians of the United States and Canada filed suit against Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group in the Southern District of New York. The complaint targets the settlements and licensing deals the two majors struck with AI music generators Suno and Udio in late 2025, ending the copyright lawsuits the labels had filed against those companies in 2024. UMG settled with Udio in October 2025; Warner settled with Udio in November 2025 and days later became the first major to settle with Suno.

The AFM alleges those deals triggered the "new uses" provision of its collective bargaining agreement, which requires labels to pay musicians when their recorded work is put to new commercial applications. Per the complaint, the labels "protected their own interests and created a significant source of new revenue with the retrospective settlements and prospective licenses" while refusing to compensate the musicians whose work "is fed into AI machines for profit." The union seeks monetary damages and disclosure of which recordings were included in the AI training programs.

Why It Matters for Artists and Fans

The labels sued Suno and Udio in the name of protecting artists, then settled on terms that turned the alleged infringement into a licensing revenue stream. This case asks the obvious follow-up question: where is the musicians' cut? If the AFM prevails, every label-AI licensing deal would owe payment to the session players whose performances make up the recordings, setting a precedent as AI licensing becomes a core label revenue line. If the labels win, they keep the AI windfall from recordings that union musicians performed on, deepening the pattern of catalogs being monetized in new ways while the people who played on them see nothing.