Suno and Udio demand streaming data that could price a $9 billion AI music damages fight
Suno and Udio moved to compel the Mechanical Licensing Collective to hand over label-by-label streaming data from eight services back to 2021, after the collective reversed course under objections from streaming platforms. What that record shows prices everything from a just-over-$9-billion damages ceiling to the royalty rates behind Udio's own licenses.
Vincent Jiang · 4 min read
The order that would open the streaming ledgers
Suno~$2.45B — Suno, private, latest valuation ~$2.45B and Udio, the two AI music startups the major labels sued over training data, have turned from defendants into filers. In motions to compel filed in the Boston copyright cases, each demanded that the Mechanical Licensing Collective, the US body that collects songwriting royalties from streaming services, hand over monthly, label-by-label performance data from Amazon−0.72% — Amazon, down 0.72 percent today, Apple−0.24% — Apple, down 0.24 percent today, Deezer, Pandora, SoundCloud, Spotify+0.04% — Spotify, up 0.04 percent today, Tidal and YouTube−0.98% — YouTube, down 0.98 percent today back to 2021, including play counts and match status, meaning whether a play was matched to a registered song. 1
The collective almost handed it over. After roughly four months of talks it confirmed it could produce several terabytes for about $5,000 the AI firms had agreed to pay, then "suddenly reversed course and refused" after objections from "affected" streaming services, Suno and Udio counsel Chris Campbell wrote. 1 Udio's clock now runs: the collective responds by October 30, Udio replies by November 13. 1
The number that prices every AI music deal
Udio chose deals over trial. Universal Music settled with and licensed it in October 2025, and the National Music Publishers' Association, the US trade group for songwriters and publishers, signed it, alongside KLAY, an AI music company, to what NMPA chief David Israelite called the first industry-wide licensing deal with a major AI company. 2 3 4 Sony−0.76% — Sony, down 0.76 percent today Music, which has settled with neither AI music firm, sued Udio a second time in July. 2
What no one has published is the number beneath those deals: what AI-generated music actually earns on streaming. The same record decides the majors' market-dilution theory against Suno. After Warner Music settled, the first suit carries 560 recordings and a ceiling near $84 million; a second suit, filed September 18, pleads 60,202 recordings, just over $9 billion at the statutory ceiling against a company valued at $5.4 billion in June. 2 Round Hill Music, a publisher suing Suno separately in California, says its damages could approach or exceed $1 billion. 2
The fair use fight turns on this data
The price list The Inference published on October 9 gets its receipt here. If AI tracks take real plays, the royalty pools at the center of the songwriters' fight over Spotify's bundle reprice up, and license rates follow; if they are unheard filler, the licenses were cheap and the dilution claims shrink.
The second suit's ceiling now tops Suno's entire valuation
- Estimate
Data
| Value | |
|---|---|
| First suit ceiling (560 works) | 0.08 |
| Round Hill claim (its own estimate) (estimate) | 1.0 |
| Suno valuation, June 2026 | 5.4 |
| Second suit ceiling, just over $9B (60,202 works) | $9B |
The courts lean the labels' way. On September 29 the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit rejected a fair use defense over AI training and held that a "rapidly developing" market for licensing works to train AI counts under fair use's fourth factor, even if the rightsholder never sold into it. 5 That ruling does not bind the Massachusetts judge. Substitution, the heart of the fourth factor, is so far argued in theory; the monthly, label-by-label record is what would turn it into evidence, whichever way it cuts. 5
The week the objectors got louder
The collective never named the objecting services; Spotify is the largest of the eight its subpoena covers. In the same week the motions to compel surfaced, Spotify guided fourth-quarter operating income to €820 million against the €813.4 million consensus, press coverage of the results credited AI DJ and AI-generated playlists, and the shares rose nearly 8%. 6
It was the same results day The Inference covered as Spotify raised prices and subscribers stayed 7. That week also brought word that Spotify has removed more than 50 million AI slop and spam tracks, mass-produced filler, from recommendations this year, on top of more than 75 million spam tracks deleted outright. 7
The collective's answer, and the clock
The collective's objections stand: the request is "vague, ambiguous, and overbroad," and it "does not collect data directly from record labels." 1 The AI firms refused a cut limited to the plaintiff labels' catalogs, which "would defeat a central purpose of the request." 1 The majors run discovery the other way, squeezing Suno backer Lightspeed Venture Partners for documents after a magistrate approved a similar subpoena touching Udio investor Andreessen Horowitz. 8
October 30 brings the collective's answer, November 13 Udio's reply, and the first case's dispositive motions, the motions that can end it before trial, are due June 22, 2027. 1 2 Udio's licenses already carry prices; whether they were the right ones is what the ledgers would show.
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