What the Suno and Udio settlements mean for independent producers

If you release your own music in the UK, the Suno and Udio settlements pay you nothing and change very little about your rights. They were deals between the AI companies and the rights holders who sued them, chiefly Warner and Universal. The practical changes for an independent producer are smaller and more specific: if you distribute through TuneCore or sit on a Merlin-member label, you may be asked to opt in to AI training, and nothing of yours is used unless you or your label agree. If you distribute through DistroKid or CD Baby, you are outside every deal announced so far. And the fight is far from over: Universal and Sony sued Suno again on 18 September 2026.

What was actually settled

In June 2024 the three major labels, Universal, Sony and Warner, sued Suno in Massachusetts and Udio in New York, accusing both of training their song generators on copyrighted recordings without a licence. Since October 2025, two of the three have settled with one or both companies, each time swapping the lawsuit for a licence and a stake in what comes next.

None of the settlement sums were published. According to Music Business Worldwide, Warner's Suno deal committed Suno to launch licensed models in 2026, retire the older ones and limit downloads to paying accounts, with artists and songwriters able to opt in to having their name, voice and compositions used. Udio has since added Kobalt and Believe as licensors too. Sony is the only major with no deal with either company.

Where independent producers stand

The settlements compensate the labels that sued, and any share passed on to artists follows those labels' own contracts. If you have never signed to Universal or Warner, none of that money reaches you. The newer licences are where independents appear, and they come in two routes.

Believe owns TuneCore, the self-release distributor we compared in DistroKid vs TuneCore vs CD Baby. Its Suno deal covers "participating repertoire" only. Believe's chief executive, Denis Ladegaillerie, told Music Business Worldwide that artists opt in twice, first to AI programmes in general and then to each partner, and that TuneCore will contact artists who previously opted in to ask about Suno specifically. Nothing is used by default.

Merlin licenses digital rights for independent labels, and its Udio deal lets member labels choose whether to take part, with only opted-in recordings used from then on. If you are signed to an indie label, the decision sits with the label, so it is worth asking them what they have agreed and checking what your contract says about new uses of your recordings.

DistroKid and CD Baby do not appear among the announced partners of either Suno or Udio. If you release through them, you have not been asked, you have not been licensed, and you have not been paid.

What about music that was already used for training

The licences cover what happens from now on. Neither Udio nor Suno has said it will pay anything back to independent artists whose music went into earlier models. That question is being argued in US class actions. The first, filed in June 2025 by the musician Anthony Justice with two independent rights holders, targets both companies on behalf of independent artists who released music on streaming services since 2021, and the law firm Hagens Berman joined it in June 2026, Music Business Worldwide reports. A second class action against Suno, led by the songwriter Jason Isbell, was filed on 1 September 2026.

No class has been certified in any of these cases yet, so nobody can say who will count as a member or whether artists outside the US will be included. If one is certified, there will be a published class definition and a claims process. Until then there is nothing for a UK producer to sign up to.

Session musicians are fighting a separate battle. The American Federation of Musicians sued Universal and Warner in New York in June 2026, arguing that licensing recordings to Suno and Udio is a new use under its labour agreement that should have triggered payments to the players on them. Both labels have asked the court to dismiss the case, and briefing closed on 11 September. That dispute turns on the AFM's own US agreement with the labels, so it does not cover UK session work booked outside it.

The lawsuits that are still running

The settlements removed Warner from both cases and Universal from the Udio case. Everything else is live.

• Universal and Sony against Suno, the original 2024 case in Massachusetts. In August 2026 the judge let the labels add a claim that Suno ripped audio from YouTube to train its models, and fact discovery closes on 30 September.
• Universal and Sony against Suno, a second case filed on 18 September 2026 over 60,202 recordings. The labels argue that because Suno's v6 models learned partly from what users made with the old models, v6 is "the fruit of the same poisoned tree". Suno called the claims "fundamentally flawed on both the facts and the law".
• Sony against Udio, in New York. After a judge refused on 29 June 2026 to let Sony add more recordings to the original case, Sony filed a second suit over 30,117 recordings on 20 July.
• GEMA, the German collecting society, against Suno. The Munich Regional Court ruled for GEMA on 31 July 2026 on six compositions, finding that training in the US could still infringe German copyright when the model is offered in Germany. The judgment is not final and an appeal is expected.
• The Canadian collecting society SOCAN against Suno, filed on 2 September 2026, alongside the independent artist class actions above.

The Munich ruling is the one closest to home. It is the first European court decision on an AI music generator, and it treated training on songs as something a European rights holder can sue over, wherever the training took place.

If you use Suno or Udio yourself

The deals changed both products. Suno's v6 launched on 9 September 2026 as three models: v6 and v6-wild for Pro and Premier subscribers, and v6-mini for everyone including free accounts. Music Business Worldwide reports that the new models exclude Universal and Sony recordings, that all previous models are being retired, and that paying subscribers own what they generate, subject to Suno's commercial-use terms. Free accounts can play and share songs but not download them.

Distribution now depends on which model made the track. Believe and TuneCore have blocked releases made with Suno's older models since April 2026 and still do, but tracks made with v6 are eligible. If you have a folder of Suno drafts from 2025, TuneCore will not release them.

Udio went the other way. It switched off downloads after the Universal settlement and has hired a content-security firm to keep generated audio inside what the industry now calls a walled garden. Its licensed app, Starstruck, has four modes for fans to cover, reimagine, remix and create with music from opted-in artists, and is due later in 2026. Nothing made there is meant to leave the app, so it is not a tool for releasing your own tracks.

What UK law says

None of these cases were brought in a UK court, and UK copyright law on AI training has not moved. In December 2024 the government consulted on a text and data mining exception that would have let AI companies train on copyrighted work unless the owner opted out. Its Report on Copyright and Artificial Intelligence, published on 18 March 2026, dropped that as the preferred option and said there would be no legislation for now. The next phase of work covers digital replicas, labelling AI-generated content, creator control and transparency.

For a UK producer, that means copying your recordings to train a commercial model in the UK still needs your permission, as it did before. The existing exception covers only non-commercial research. Enforcing it against a US company is the hard part, which is why the Munich ruling and the US class actions matter more in practice than any change in UK law so far. The same basic rule applies when you are the one borrowing: our guide to sample clearance explains why using someone else's recording needs a licence.