Who Pays the Players? The Musicians’ Union Sues UMG & Warner Over the AI Deals — and the Labels Move to Dismiss

Send us Fan MailThe labels sued Suno and Udio for stealing from artists — then settled, licensed their catalogs to those same AI companies, and (says the union) kept the money. Barry Neil Shrum and Dennis Disney break down the American Federation of Musicians’ federal lawsuit against Warner and Universal: the 1940s-vintage “new use” rule in the Sound Recording Labor Agreement, why licensing masters into an AI training set may trigger it, and why the session players who built the Nashville Sound — the A-Team — could be owed both pay and credit. Plus the labels’ brand-new motion to dismiss — their argument that the new-use clause “cannot function” without a pre-set AI rate, the union’s answer that there’s no arbitration clause so it had to sue, and why Barry thinks the labels’ “no rate, no breach” theory may prove the union’s point. Compared with last week’s Gavel Drop, GEMA’s copyright win over Suno in Munich, and where the U.S. Suno case in Boston stands. General information, not legal advice.Support the show