Photo Credit: Koushik Chowdavarapu
Udio has come up short in its attempt to toss the copyright class action lawsuit filed by indie artists including Attack the Sound frontman David Woulard, but the case is being transferred to the Southern District of New York.
Both the dismissal denial and the venue change surfaced in a new docket entry, with the complaint itself (plus a substantially similar suit, also featuring Woulard as a plaintiff, against Suno) having set sail in an Illinois federal court this past October.
As we reported then, the filing parties are accusing the AI developer defendants of training on their music without authorization, violating the DMCA as part of the same training process, and diluting the market with unapproved soundalike audio.
That the detail-oriented suits share multiple similarities with a pair of different artist-led Udio and Suno class actions – filed months beforehand in 2025, counting Tony Justice as a plaintiff, and led by entertainment attorney Krystle Delgado – hasn’t been lost on the defendants.
Four months ago, a dismissal-minded Udio emphasized (in relation to the Woulard suit) its belief that the Justice action “plainly qualifies as a duplicative case under the standards applied in the Seventh Circuit and in this district.”
“Plaintiffs’ inability to cite a single case supporting their position about personal jurisdiction in the era of the internet is telling: there is no support for finding personal jurisdiction over Udio here,” the platform added.
Now, as initially noted, the presiding judge has opted against dismissing the suit but has transferred it to the Southern District of New York, where the relevant Justice case is still unfolding.
With that, we’ll continue closely monitoring all four of the complaints as well as the pile of other actions against AI developers.
Just in passing, Sony Music has doubled down on its claims against Udio despite the startup’s licensing pacts with Universal Music and Warner Music Group (WMG). Incidentally, evidence also suggests that Sony Music might not be onboard with Spotify’s forthcoming AI remix and cover tool.
Yesterday, the streaming platform’s execs stressed that said tool needn’t be licensed by all three majors before launching. As Universal Music is already participating and Robert Kyncl-led WMG is comparatively willing to lean into gen AI partnerships, the deliberate clarification jumped out as a likely reference to Sony Music.
(A different take: Warner Music’s position on the “walled garden” – and the other majors’ contrary views – isn’t a secret. Might WMG, the lone major that’s licensed Suno, be hesitant to back the Spotify tool for reasons of its own? Perhaps; Kyncl during his company’s earnings call today noncommittally added, “We’ll share more (about the Spotify talks) when there’s something to announce.”)
Meanwhile, multiple publishers are still litigating against Anthropic, and with GEMA’s recent legal win over Suno front of mind, there’s now a greater focus on KODA’s complaint against the platform in Denmark.
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