Anatomy of an AI-music licence: what the Udio and Suno settlements say, and what they leave out

Within four weeks in late 2025, two of the three major labels stopped suing the two best-known AI song generators and signed licences with them instead. Universal settled with Udio on 29 October, Music Business Worldwide reported. Warner followed with Udio on 19 November and with Suno on 25 November. The press releases read like versions of one document. This piece takes that document apart: what the public terms commit to, and the three things they leave out.

The template, clause by clause

1. Settle, and get paid for the past. Universal's deal combined a "compensatory legal settlement" with new licences for both recorded music and publishing. Financial terms were not disclosed, according to the Associated Press. Warner's two releases say only that each deal resolves or settles the litigation.

2. Retrain on licensed music and retire the old models. Warner says Udio's new platform will run on models trained on licensed and authorised music. Suno agreed to launch licensed models in 2026 and deprecate the existing ones when they arrive. It did that with v6 on 9 September 2026, which it says was developed with Warner, BMG and Believe among its partners, and said it would retire its previous models. We covered what v6 changed for users.

3. Artists opt in by name, voice and likeness. Warner's Suno release promises artists and songwriters an opt-in for the use of their "name, image, likeness, voice and compositions" in new AI songs. The Udio release describes remixes, covers and new songs using the voices and compositions of artists and songwriters who choose to take part, with credit and pay. Udio's fan app, Starstruck, works only with opted-in artists; we looked at how that walled garden works.

4. Control what leaves the platform. This is where the two companies differ most. Udio's existing service stays open during the transition with creations "controlled within a walled garden", per MBW, and it stopped users downloading their songs immediately after the Universal deal, AP reported. Udio's chief executive Andrew Sanchez has said some form of export might come "two years, five years down the line". Suno kept downloads but rations them. From 3 September 2026 Pro accounts get 20 downloads a month and Premier 60, while free users get seven lifetime downloads for personal use, MBW reported. Downloads from Suno Studio stay unlimited for Premier. More on what the cap does to producers.

5. Side deals. As part of the Warner deal, Suno bought Songkick, the concert-discovery service, from Warner. We asked what that data means for artists.

What the public terms don't say

The price. None of the releases or reports we read gives a settlement sum, licence fee or revenue split for any of the three deals. The releases talk of "new revenue streams" and "revenue opportunities" instead.

What the money pays for. Suno's chief product officer Jack Brody has said the partnerships are not a way of buying training data; a lawsuit filed by Sony and Universal quotes him as saying the revenue share is "not in exchange for training". Suno has also said that v6 was trained partly on "creations and preference signals" from its users, alongside partner-licensed content.

The split, and the route to the artist. According to Water & Music's account of a private Kobalt webinar, reported by Music Ally on 22 May 2026, songwriters' share from Starstruck would be "significantly more" than from streaming, with no percentages given. The recordings generated there will belong to the original rightsholders, not the fan or, necessarily, the artist. Session musicians aren't mentioned in either Warner release. Their union, the AFM, sued Universal and Warner in June 2026, arguing that the deals are a "new use" that requires payment to the players, and saying the labels won't tell it which recordings were licensed. It is now bargaining over AI.

Who is not in the deals. Sony has settled with neither company: it was still suing Udio in May 2026. In September, Universal and Sony filed a second suit against Suno in Massachusetts covering 60,202 recordings, and cited Suno's own deals with Warner, BMG and Believe as proof that a licensing market exists.

What we think

The template moves the argument from the courtroom to a contract, and that contract is between labels and platforms. The artist's lever is the opt-in, and it is narrower than it sounds. As Warner describes it, the opt-in covers outputs: whether your name, voice or songs can be called up by a user. It doesn't cover inputs: whether your recordings were used to train the model. If Brody is right that the revenue share isn't for training, then nothing in the public terms says who is being paid for training, or how much. That is our reading of the published wording, not a disclosed term, and the labels could settle the question in one sentence.

That matters because training is the use every signed artist is exposed to, while opt-in output is a choice only a few will make. Sanchez has said that assigning a percentage of an output to a training source "just doesn't make sense". If no per-track attribution is possible, any money for training can only reach artists through a label's own allocation formula, which shows up, if at all, as a line on a royalty statement. Artists signed to Warner or Universal should ask now: is there an AI licensing line on my statement, which recordings does it cover, and how was my share calculated?

"Licensed model" is also a weaker label than it sounds. Suno says v6 learned partly from user creations, and those were made with earlier models that the labels had sued over. Nothing in the published terms suggests individual artists were asked about that.

The download limits are framed as protecting artists, but they mostly protect the platform. Unlimited listening inside Suno and Udio, with exports rationed or blocked, makes each service a destination that competes with streaming for the same fans' time. Artists will only be better off if the in-app payments beat what those listening hours would have earned on Spotify, and no one has published a number that lets anyone check.

Our minimum asks: opt-in decided by the artist, not just by the label; published rates, or at least a published pool share; an AI line on every statement; and a share for the session players on the recordings. Anyone choosing AI tools for their own sessions should hold them to the same standard, whether that's Suno or a studio co-producer like Veena: licensed, opt-in training is the floor, not a feature.

Sources

• Warner Music Group and Suno forge groundbreaking partnership, Warner Music Group, 25 Nov 2025
• Warner Music Group and Udio collaborate to build a new licensed music creation service, Warner Music Group, 19 Nov 2025
• A new chapter in music creation, Suno, 25 Nov 2025
• Introducing v6, Suno, 9 Sep 2026
• Universal Music settles Udio lawsuit, strikes deal for licensed AI music platform, Music Business Worldwide, 30 Oct 2025
• Universal Music and AI song generator Udio settle lawsuit and partner on new AI music platform, Associated Press, 30 Oct 2025
• Udio CEO Andrew Sanchez on walled gardens in AI music, Music Business Worldwide, 19 May 2026
• Udio reveals details of its licensed AI music app Starstruck, Music Ally, 22 May 2026
• Suno limits Pro subscribers to 20 song downloads per month, Music Business Worldwide, 11 Aug 2026
• Suno confirms v6 model was trained on creations from users, Music Business Worldwide, 22 Sep 2026
• Universal and Sony sue Suno again, this time over 60,202 recordings, TNW, 18 Sep 2026
• Musicians' union sues UMG and Warner Music, Music Business Worldwide, 8 Jun 2026