Negotiations between the music industry and AI music startup Suno have stalled, with no deal in sight.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s according to<\/a> the Financial Times <\/i>on Tuesday (April 7), which cited people familiar with the matter as saying that Universal Music Group <\/b>and Suno<\/b> have only seen little substantive progress in their talks in recent months.<\/p>\n Sources also told the FT <\/i>that Suno hasn\u2019t been able to reach a deal with Sony Music Entertainment <\/b>as the music giants reject its model for distributing AI-generated music.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have ongoing engagement, but there is no path forward with the current proposal,\u201d a person involved in the negotiations told the newspaper.<\/p>\n Warner Music Group<\/b>, one of the three major labels, struck its own deal with Suno in November, but according to the FT\u2019s <\/i>sources, the partnership has seen minimal progress.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have ongoing engagement, but there is no path forward with the current proposal.”<\/p>\n A Person involved with the negotiations (via Ft)<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n In November, Warner Music and Suno said they have struck what they call a \u201cfirst-of-its-kind partnership<\/a>, which \u201copen[s] new frontiers in music creation, interaction, and discovery, while both compensating and protecting artists, songwriters, and the wider creative community\u201d.<\/p>\n The deal settled previous litigation between the companies.<\/p>\n The Warner Music deal arrived as Suno, along with its peer Udio<\/b>, faced litigations from the music giants over their AI training models. Following a period of legal battles, Universal Music Group <\/b>settled with Udio in October 2025<\/a>, followed by Warner Music <\/b>in November 2025<\/a>.<\/p>\n Udio\u2019s agreements with the two majors included licensing deals for a new AI music platform expected to launch this year.<\/p>\n Suno also settled with WMG<\/a> in November, but the AI company remains locked in legal battles with UMG and Sony Music, as well as European music rights orgs, including\u00a0Denmark\u2019s Koda<\/b><\/a>\u00a0<\/b>and\u00a0Germany\u2019s GEMA<\/b><\/a>.<\/p>\n In a statement to the FT, <\/i>Suno said: \u201cWe want to work cooperatively with the music industry to unlock new sources of revenue for artists.\u201d<\/p>\n However, Suno still faces criticisms from artists. In February, a coalition of artist representatives published an open letter<\/a> calling on the music community to reject Suno.<\/p>\n \u201cWe want to work cooperatively with the music industry to unlock new sources of revenue for artists.\u201d<\/p>\n Suno (via ft)<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n In the open letter titled \u2018Say No to Suno\u2019<\/b>, the artist reps described the company as a \u201cbrazen smash and grab\u201d platform, accusing it of using \u201cunauthorized AI platform machinery trained on human artists\u2019 work\u201d.<\/p>\n Published on February 23\u00a0on the\u00a0Music Technology Policy<\/i>\u00a0blog,<\/a>\u00a0the letter was signed by figures including Ron Gubitz<\/b>, Executive Director of the Music Artist Coalition<\/b>; Helienne Lindvall<\/b>, songwriter and President of the European Composer and Songwriter Alliance<\/b>; and Chris Castle <\/b>of the Artist Rights Institute.<\/b><\/b><\/p>\n The artists argued that AI-generated music floods platforms and \u201cdilutes the royalty pools of legitimate artists from whose music this slop is derived.\u201d<\/p>\n French streaming platform Deezer disclosed<\/a>\u00a0in January that it was receiving approximately 60,000<\/b> fully AI-generated tracks per day \u2014 around 39%<\/b> of all daily deliveries to the platform.<\/p>\n Up to 85%<\/b> of streams on that content were found to be fraudulent, demonetized, and removed from the royalty pool, according to the company.<\/p>\n Suno, which\u00a0closed a $250 million<\/strong> Series C funding round<\/a>\u00a0in November 2025 at a $2.45 billion <\/b>post-money valuation,\u00a0reported in February<\/a>\u00a0that it has reached\u00a02 million<\/b>\u00a0paid subscribers and\u00a0$300 million<\/b>\u00a0in annual recurring revenue. The company says over 100 million people have used its platform.<\/p>\n Less than two weeks ago, Suno released version 5.5<\/b> of its platform, introducing a voice capture feature and two personalization tools that the company says are aimed at attracting first-time creators and working professionals.<\/p>\n The launch arrived days after MBW founder Tim Ingham\u00a0questioned<\/a>\u00a0where Suno\u2019s WMG-licensed V6 model was, noting in his latest\u00a0Tim\u2019s Take<\/i>\u00a0column that it had been 114 days since the settlement was announced with no new licensed model in sight.<\/p>\n Despite its legal challenges, Suno has been investing heavily in music industry relationships. The company has hired former Warner Music Group<\/b> executive Paul Sinclair<\/b> <\/a>as Chief Music Officer, former\u00a0Merlin<\/b>\u00a0CEO Jeremy<\/b> Sirota<\/b><\/a> as Chief Commercial Officer, and former\u00a0Spotify<\/b>\u00a0executive Sam<\/b> <\/a>Berger<\/a> <\/b>as Senior Director of Artist Partnerships.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Talks with UMG and Warner Music have seen little progress, while Suno hasn’t been able to reach a deal with Sony Music, according to the Financial Times.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":221693,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[3351,131536,132081,269,418],"class_list":["post-254862","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-sony-music-entertainment","tag-suno","tag-udio","tag-universal-music-group","tag-warner-music-group"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254862","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/38"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=254862"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254862\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":254865,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254862\/revisions\/254865"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/221693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=254862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=254862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=254862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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