Hacked source code from AI music company Suno lists YouTube Music, Deezer and Genius among the platforms it scraped to build its artificial intelligence models.
A court filing in a copyright lawsuit by major record labels against Suno has revealed that the AI music startup allegedly scraped music content from YouTube, Deezer, and Genius to train its AI models. This comes as a major blow to Suno, a company that has been touting its ability to create original music with AI. The labels have been suing Suno for allegedly infringing on their copyright by creating music that sounds too similar to existing songs.
The Scraping Practices in Question
The source code, which was hacked and leaked online, reveals that Suno’s system used APIs to scrape music metadata and content from various platforms, including YouTube, Deezer, and Genius. This metadata allegedly included song titles, artist names, and even song lyrics. The scraped data was then used to train Suno’s AI models to create new music that sounds similar to existing songs.
What this means
This revelation highlights the ongoing debate about AI-generated music and its relationship to copyright law. While AI music startups like Suno claim to be creating original music, the use of scraped data from existing songs raises questions about the ownership and copyright of the music. If Suno is found guilty of copyright infringement, it could set a precedent for other AI music startups and potentially limit their ability to use existing music data to train their AI models.
The hack also raises concerns about data privacy and the security of APIs used by music streaming platforms. If Suno was able to scrape data from these platforms with relative ease, it may indicate a larger vulnerability in the way these platforms handle their APIs and data security.
A Copyright Lawsuit with Big Implications
The lawsuit against Suno is ongoing, but this development could potentially have far-reaching implications for the music industry as a whole. If the labels succeed in their lawsuit, it could force AI music startups to rethink their approach to music creation and potentially lead to a re-evaluation of copyright law and its relationship to AI-generated music.
