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Udio's Starstruck: a licensed walled garden where fans make music as your favourite artist

Udio's licensed app Starstruck will let fans cover, reimagine, remix or write new songs, but only as a named, opted-in artist, with royalties paid on every creation and nothing allowed to leave the app. It is AI as fan merchandise rather than an artist's tool, and the opt-in usually runs through the label or publisher, not the artist.

Key facts

  • What happened: details of Starstruck, the licensed consumer app Udio is building after settling with Universal Music Group, emerged on 21-22 May 2026 from a private Udio and Kobalt webinar reported by Water & Music and Music Ally.
  • How: four modes (Cover, Reimagine, Remix, Create) all start from a specific artist and song; royalties flow on every creation, the generated recordings belong to the artist's rights holder, and outputs cannot be exported.
  • Why it matters: artists opt in through their label and publisher deals, so "opted in" may not mean the artist personally chose. As of 8 Sep 2026 Udio downloads were still disabled and no Starstruck launch had been confirmed.

If you are a signed artist, there is a reasonable chance that fans will soon be able to make "new" songs in your voice inside an app, and that the decision to allow it was made in a licensing deal you never read. That is the clearest takeaway from the first detailed look at Starstruck, the licensed app Udio is building after its settlement with Universal Music Group.

The details come from a private webinar Udio co-hosted with Kobalt on 30 April 2026, which Water & Music reported on 21 May and Music Ally followed a day later. Udio has not published a product page, so treat everything below as a plan described to rights holders, not a shipped product.

What Starstruck does

According to Water & Music's account of the demo, Starstruck is a mobile-first app for fans, not producers, with four modes:

  • Cover: a new artist's version of an existing song, keeping its lyrics and composition.
  • Reimagine: the lyrics stay, but the music is rewritten as if another artist had written it.
  • Remix: a genre or style shift applied to an existing recording.
  • Create: the user's own lyrics, sung in a selected artist's voice, within limits on topic, language and style.

In every mode the user has to pick a specific artist and song. Generic, unattributed AI music is not on offer. Royalties go to artists, songwriters and rights holders each time a user hits create, and Kobalt's chief digital officer told the webinar that songwriters would be paid "significantly more" than under streaming. No percentages were given.

Two further details matter more than the modes. First, when asked who owns a generated recording, Udio CEO Andrew Sanchez said it belongs to the rights holder of the participating artist: a label, a publisher, or possibly the artist via their distributor. The fan is not the owner. Second, nothing leaves the app. Sanchez described three layers of control: stream encryption, inaudible watermarks on every output, and fingerprinting so distributors and streaming services can block uploads that match Starstruck creations. Pricing is planned as two subscription tiers, Standard and Pro, each capped at a number of creations a month.

How we got here

Udio was sued by the three major labels in 2024. UMG settled on 29 October 2025, announcing a licensed platform to launch in 2026 and saying Udio's existing product would keep running "within a walled garden" in the meantime. Warner, Merlin, Kobalt and Believe have since signed too; Music Business Worldwide reported in May that Sony was still litigating.

The walled garden arrived immediately. Udio switched off downloads the day of the UMG deal, including for songs made long before it, and Billboard reported angry subscribers, some threatening legal action. The backlash was loudest on Udio's own subreddit, where users vented in threads like this one. Sanchez responded with an apology posted to Reddit (see the update thread) and a one-off 48-hour download window starting 3 November 2025, Billboard reported.

That window was the exception. Udio's help centre still lists audio, video and stem downloads as disabled. A SoundGuard review updated on 8 September 2026 found the same and could not confirm any public Starstruck launch, describing the late-2026 target as reported rather than confirmed.

Why Udio thinks fans want this

Sanchez is unapologetic. In a 19 May interview with MBW he said more than 90% of Udio users ask for a song in the style of a favourite artist or song, and that a "highly controlled ecosystem" is what makes rights holders comfortable. He suggested exports might come "two years, five years down the line", if all parties agree. He also said attribution has limits: in his view, tracing an output back to specific training data may be impossible. Water & Music notes the consequence. Starstruck can pay for the catalogue a fan explicitly picks, but not for whatever else the underlying model learned from.

The open question is demand. Water & Music reports that top trending tracks on Udio's current walled-garden web app draw around 100 plays a month, against 200,000-plus for top tracks on Suno, which still allows sharing.

What we think

Opt-in plus per-creation royalties is a genuine improvement on scraping first and settling later. If you have to have AI versions of your songs, being asked and paid is better than not.

But look at who Starstruck is for. The creative act belongs to the fan, the recording belongs to the rights holder, and the artist contributes a voice and a catalogue. This is AI as fan merchandise, a licensed product built on your likeness, not a tool for your own work. That is not inherently bad. Merch pays rent. But merch deals normally come with approval rights over the design, and nothing reported so far says an artist gets to hear, veto or remove a specific Starstruck creation. In the MBW interview, Sanchez pointed to takedowns as one way an artist can control use of their voice, which puts the work of policing on the artist after the fact.

The bigger issue is the word "opted in". Water & Music reports that artists and songwriters opt in through their label and publisher partnerships. For an artist whose contract grants the label broad rights over new formats, that could mean a decision taken by someone else under a deal signed before voice models existed. Ownership has the same gap: the generated recording goes to the rights holder, which for many artists is the label, not them.

So before Starstruck launches, artists should ask their label or publisher three plain questions, in writing. Have you opted me in? Can I opt out, per mode? Does my share of a per-creation royalty follow my existing contract rate, or something new? The "Create" mode, where strangers write lyrics for your voice, deserves its own separate yes. If the answer to the first question is "it's covered by your deal", then you didn't choose, whatever the launch press release ends up saying.

Sources

Sources

  1. Universal Music Group and Udio announce Udio's first strategic agreements for new licensed AI music creation platform, Universal Music Group (primary source). Accessed 23 Oct 2026.
  2. Changes associated with the Universal Music Group ("UMG") partnership, Udio Help Center (primary source). Accessed 23 Oct 2026.
  3. Udio CEO Andrew Sanchez on 'walled gardens' in AI music, Warner-Suno, and why he's skeptical of attribution engines, Music Business Worldwide (primary source). Accessed 23 Oct 2026.
  4. A scoop on Udio's upcoming app, Starstruck, Water & Music. Accessed 23 Oct 2026.
  5. Udio reveals details of its licensed AI music app Starstruck, Music Ally. Accessed 23 Oct 2026.
  6. Udio Says Users Can Download AI Songs for 48 Hours After Backlash to UMG Legal Settlement, Billboard. Accessed 23 Oct 2026.
  7. Udio Downloads and Starstruck: What Is Confirmed in September 2026, SoundGuard. Accessed 23 Oct 2026.
  8. Important update from Team Udio, Reddit (r/udiomusic). Accessed 23 Oct 2026.
  9. UMG just took our downloads, change your PFP, Reddit (r/udiomusic). Accessed 23 Oct 2026.

Researched with AI assistance, written and checked by WATMM Desk.

Change log

  • : Added the latest status: Udio downloads still disabled and no confirmed Starstruck launch as of 8 Sep 2026.

Tags

aiai-musicudiolicensingwalled-garden

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