A coalition of artist representatives has published an open letter calling on the music community to reject AI music generator Suno.<\/p>\n
In an open letter titled ‘Say No to Suno’, the artist reps described the company as a “brazen smash and grab” platform, accusing it of using “unauthorized AI platform machinery trained on human artists’ work”.<\/p>\n
Published Monday (February 23) on the Music Technology Policy<\/em> blog,<\/a>\u00a0the letter was signed by figures including Ron Gubitz, Executive Director of the Music Artist Coalition; Helienne Lindvall, songwriter and President of the European Composer and Songwriter Alliance; and Chris Castle of the Artist Rights Institute.<\/p>\n Other signatories included artist David C. Lowery; artist and Artist Rights Alliance board member Tift Merritt; Blake Morgan, artist, producer, and President of ECR Music Group; and Abby North, President of North Music Group.<\/p>\n The letter arrives as Suno continues to face copyright infringement lawsuits from major music companies and rights organizations. The RIAA filed suit<\/a> against both Suno and rival Udio in mid-2024, acting on behalf of all three majors, alleging “mass infringement” of copyright.<\/p>\n Udio has since reached settlements with both Universal Music Group<\/a> and Warner Music Group<\/a>, signing licensing agreements with each for a new AI music platform expected to launch this year.<\/p>\n WMG<\/strong> also settled separately<\/a> with Suno<\/strong> in November, but the AI company remains locked in legal battles with UMG and Sony Music Entertainment, as well as European music rights orgs, including Denmark’s Koda<\/a> and Germany’s GEMA<\/a>.<\/p>\n The open letter took aim at the broader concept of AI in the music business, arguing that unauthorized generative AI platforms are fundamentally different from previous technological disruptions in the industry.<\/p>\n The letter argued that the “hijacking of the world’s entire treasure-trove of music floods platforms with AI slop and dilutes the royalty pools of legitimate artists from whose music this slop is derived”.<\/p>\n The letter arrives amid a growing volume of AI-generated music hitting streaming platforms.<\/p>\n According to recent data from Deezer<\/a>, approximately 60,000<\/strong> AI-generated tracks are being uploaded to the Paris-headquartered streaming service every day, with synthetic content now accounting for roughly 39%<\/strong> of all music delivered to the platform daily.<\/p>\n Deezer also revealed that up to 85%<\/strong> of all streams on AI-generated music on its platform were fraudulent in 2025 \u2013 up from the 70%<\/strong> figure it reported in the prior year. Those streams are demonetized and removed from the royalty pool. By comparison, streaming fraud across Deezer’s entire catalog accounted for 8%<\/strong> of all streams in 2025.<\/p>\n While AI-generated music currently makes up only a small share of total streams on Deezer<\/strong> (up to 3%), the platform maintains that generating fake streams remains the primary purpose for uploading such content.<\/p>\n The letter also waded into the ongoing industry debate\u00a0over so-called “walled gardens<\/strong>” in AI music, criticizing a recent LinkedIn post by\u00a0Paul Sinclair<\/strong>, Suno’s Chief Music Officer and<\/span> an ex-WMG executive, who argued that closed AI systems limit how people engage with music.<\/p>\n Sinclair <\/strong>penned a lengthy post-Grammy Week LinkedIn memo<\/a> entitled “Open Studios, not walled gardens,” which took direct aim at the approach championed by Universal Music Group<\/strong> in its recent AI licensing agreements.<\/p>\n UMG was the first major to settle its litigation with Suno rival Udio<\/span><\/a> (in October 2025), alongside a licensing deal for a new AI platform set to launch in 2026.<\/p>\n The concept of a “walled garden” was introduced within that announcement \u2013 a model where AI-generated music cannot be downloaded or distributed outside the platform. Udio disabled downloads, with users given a 48-hour grace period to retrieve previously created tracks before the walls went up.<\/p>\n Warner Music Group followed with its own Udio settlement<\/a> in November, implementing similar restrictions.<\/p>\n But when WMG then signed a separate deal with Suno<\/span><\/a> later that month, the terms proved notably different. Suno retained much of its core functionality, including the ability for users to create songs and download them.<\/p>\n Around two months after that deal was announced, in his annual memo to staff<\/span><\/a>, UMG Chairman and CEO Sir Lucian Grainge appeared to warn against firms “validating business models that fail to respect artists’ work and creativity, and promote the exponential growth of AI slop on streaming platforms.”<\/p>\n Michael Nash, Executive Vice President and Chief Digital Officer at UMG, explained the company’s position in further detail during an appearance<\/a> on Billboard’s On The Record podcast last month, and outlined the walled garden concept in stark terms.<\/p>\n “The concept [of a walled garden] is to set up through AI a component of the service for deep interaction with the artists and the content, but not to create derivatives that you then take off of the platform and post all over your socials and post on Spotify and Amazon Music, and Apple,” he said.<\/p>\n He argued that by doing so, you “effectively use artists’ content and their brand to create derivatives where you’re going to compete with the artist on other platforms”.<\/p>\n Beyond Sinclair, who joined Suno in July 2025<\/a>, the company has made other high-profile hires from the music industry to support its efforts to build relationships with the sector, including former Merlin CEO Jeremy Sirota as Chief Commercial Officer<\/a> and former Spotify executive Sam Berger as Senior Director of Artist Partnerships<\/a>.<\/p>\n
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