AI Music Startup Suno Strikes Landmark Licensing Deal with Warner Music, Settling Litigation

AI 업계 저작권 전쟁 격화… 소송 vs 합의, 기업마다 엇갈린 운명

The AI industry's copyright wars are reaching a critical inflection point, with companies facing starkly divergent fates. OpenAI has been dealt a devastating blow by a U.S. federal court ordering the release of internal documents related to pirated book datasets, potentially exposing the company to billions of dollars in damages. Meanwhile, AI music startup Suno has charted a different course, securing a landmark licensing agreement with Warner Music Group that settles pending litigation. The contrast couldn't be sharper: fight and risk losing everything, or negotiate and survive.

Suno Secures Historic Licensing Deal with Warner Music

AI music generation platform Suno has reached a licensing agreement with Warner Music Group (WMG), one of the world's three major music labels. According to The Wall Street Journal, the deal simultaneously settles the copyright infringement lawsuit Warner had filed against the startup.

The agreement's centerpiece allows Suno to launch new AI models trained on Warner's licensed catalog. Suno's platform generates songs from text prompts, and the company plans to release new models next year.

However, free access will be restricted. Users must be paid subscribers to download songs from the new models, with monthly download caps in place. Additional downloads will require extra payment. Warner artists and songwriters retain the choice to opt into the service.

As part of the deal, Suno is acquiring Songkick, Warner Music's concert discovery platform. Financial terms were not disclosed. Suno recently announced a $250 million funding round at a valuation of $2.45 billion.

Major Labels Pivot from Litigation to Licensing

Warner Music becomes the first major label to sign a licensing deal with Suno, marking a potential turning point for the AI music industry.

All three major labels—Warner Music, Sony Music Group, and Universal Music Group—sued Suno and rival AI music platform Udio last year for copyright infringement. Yet they've since pivoted from courtroom battles to the negotiating table.

Universal and Warner recently announced separate licensing deals with Udio as well. The major labels have effectively chosen coexistence over confrontation, opting to secure licensing revenue while adapting to the AI era rather than attempting to destroy their AI competitors through litigation.

Industry observers expect this model to influence other creative sectors. The paradigm of AI companies proactively negotiating with rights holders and paying fair compensation could become the new standard.

OpenAI Faces Opposite Fate: Document Disclosure Order Threatens Billions in Damages

While Suno navigated its crisis through licensing, OpenAI suffered a decisive defeat in its copyright litigation.

On November 26, U.S. District Judge Ona Wang ordered OpenAI to turn over documents revealing the company's motivations for deleting massive pirated book datasets known as "books 1" and "books 2." OpenAI's in-house legal team will also be deposed.

Critically, the court ruled that Slack messages from OpenAI employee channels named "project-clear" and "excise-libgen" are subject to discovery. "Libgen" presumably refers to Library Genesis, a notorious shadow library hosting millions of pirated books.

The court rejected most of OpenAI's attorney-client privilege claims. OpenAI has appealed the decision and requested a stay on discovery obligations.

OpenAI's Shifting Legal Strategy Backfires Spectacularly

The ruling's core finding is that OpenAI's inconsistent legal maneuvering effectively dug its own grave.

Last year, OpenAI's counsel stated that the "books 1" and "books 2" datasets weren't used for training and were deleted in 2022 "due to their non-use." However, OpenAI later attempted to withdraw this statement and claimed all evidence related to the deletion was protected by attorney-client privilege.

Judge Wang's criticism was withering: "OpenAI has waived privilege by making a moving target of its privilege assertions. OpenAI cannot state a 'reason' (which implies it is not privileged) and then later assert that the 'reason' is privileged to avoid discovery."

By voluntarily disclosing a reason for deleting the datasets, OpenAI effectively stripped away its privilege protections over related internal communications.

Willful Infringement Could Trigger $150,000 Per Work in Damages

The ruling is potentially catastrophic because it dramatically increases the likelihood of proving "willful infringement."

Under U.S. copyright law, willful infringement triggers statutory damages of up to $150,000 per work—compared to $750 to $30,000 for ordinary infringement, a potential 200-fold increase. Given that OpenAI allegedly used hundreds of thousands of books for training, total damages could reach hundreds of billions of dollars.

Even more serious is the spoliation issue. If the court determines OpenAI destroyed evidence in anticipation of litigation, it could issue an adverse inference instruction directing juries to assume the deleted evidence would have been unfavorable to OpenAI—effectively a presumption of guilt.

To escape willful infringement liability, OpenAI must demonstrate a "good faith belief" in the legality of its actions. However, Judge Wang noted a "fundamental conflict" when defendants invoke attorney-client privilege to block discovery into their state of mind.

Anthropic's $1.5 Billion Settlement Sets Industry Benchmark

While OpenAI continues its legal battle, competitor Anthropic chose a different path.

In a lawsuit filed by author Andrea Bartz, U.S. District Judge William Alsup found that Anthropic's downloading of millions of books and storing them in a central library constituted copyright infringement.

Judge Alsup's ruling was unequivocal: "That Anthropic later bought a copy of a book it earlier stole off the internet will not absolve it of liability for the theft."

Following this ruling, Anthropic agreed to a $1.5 billion settlement. Industry analysts view this as establishing a new benchmark for AI copyright litigation. Given that OpenAI's case potentially involves an even larger scale of books, any settlement or judgment could significantly exceed this amount.

Authors' Evolving Legal Strategy: "The Download Itself Is Infringement"

Plaintiffs' legal strategies have grown increasingly sophisticated over time.

Early AI copyright lawsuits bundled illegal copying and AI model training as a single infringement theory. This approach proved vulnerable to AI companies' "fair use" defenses.

Authors' attorneys subsequently separated the theories, arguing that illegal downloading constitutes independent copyright infringement regardless of whether the materials were actually used for training. The argument: "The moment you illegally download a book, copyright infringement is complete. What you did with it afterward is a separate question."

This strategy has gained traction in the courts, eroding AI companies' defenses. OpenAI's internal Slack channel name "excise-libgen" could prove decisive evidence on precisely this point.-

Litigation vs. Negotiation: The AI Industry at a Crossroads

The contrasting trajectories of Suno and OpenAI deliver a sobering warning to the entire AI industry.

Suno proactively approached the negotiating table with major labels before litigation escalated. By paying licensing fees and adjusting its revenue model, the company eliminated legal risks and established a legitimate business foundation. For a startup valued at $2.45 billion, this strategic decision prioritized not just survival but industry trust and sustainable growth.

OpenAI, by contrast, attempted to avoid legal exposure through privilege claims, only to exacerbate its crisis. Its vacillating legal responses destroyed credibility and ultimately led to the worst-case scenario of internal document disclosure.

While business circumstances and copyright issues differ between companies, the fundamental lesson is clear: approaches that ignore copyright or attempt to circumvent it through legal technicalities no longer work.

For AI companies' survival, credibility, and continued industry development, proactive engagement with rights holders and reasonable compensation have become essential. The AI industry's true crossroads lies not in choosing between "litigation" and "negotiation," but in value judgments about responsible growth and building a sustainable industrial ecosystem.

The AI Copyright War Enters a New Phase

The relationship between generative AI and copyright is rapidly transitioning from "scrape first, deal with consequences later" to "business models premised on pre-licensing and settlement structures."

Key Dynamics of the New Landscape

The transformation of lawsuits between Suno/Udio and major labels like Warner and Universal into licensing and partnership models is establishing "litigation-then-deal" as the music industry's default scenario.

Anthropic's $1.5 billion settlement with authors sent a powerful market signal that unauthorized data collection cleanup and deletion, combined with financial compensation, now come as a package.

OpenAI continues its "confrontational" strategy in lawsuits with The New York Times and other publishers. Depending on how these cases resolve, they could set precedent-defining rules across text, image, and video domains.

Options Facing AI Companies

Coexistence and Collaboration: Secure "legal data pools + brand safety" through licensing deals with major rights holders, combining flat fees, revenue sharing, and equity stakes in hybrid arrangements.

Confrontation and Litigation: Lead with fair use and technological progress arguments, as OpenAI has, while accepting the high-risk strategy that could mean massive damages and data remediation costs if defeated.

Middle Ground: Like Anthropic, lock in risks through large-scale settlements at a certain point while simultaneously restructuring datasets and building new licensing frameworks.

Expansion to Other Creative Industries

The "litigation → settlement/licensing → coexistence platform" model being established in music is likely to repeat in modified forms across publishing, journalism, broadcasting, and video.

Publishers and news organizations are already pursuing parallel litigation and negotiations with OpenAI, Microsoft, and others. New detailed rules around usage fees, scope, and attribution for articles, books, and scripts are being written in real time.

Milestones to Watch

Whether the Suno-Warner and Udio-UMG models actually generate meaningful revenue and royalties from 2026 onward will determine if "licensed AI music" becomes the global standard.

The outcomes of OpenAI-related lawsuits—whether through verdicts or settlement terms—will likely redefine standards for training data usage across text, image, and video, as well as the interpretation of "fair use."

Synthesizing all these developments, it's clear that generative AI's technological innovation is being realigned to incorporate copyright not as "a risk to be avoided" but as "infrastructure and cost structure to be designed."

OpenAI와 Suno, 그리고 Anthropic까지 –

생성 AI와 저작권을 둘러싼 법적 공방이 본격적인 ‘2막’에 들어섰다. OpenAI는 불법 복제 도서 데이터셋과 관련해 내부 문건과 슬랙 기록까지 제출하라는 미국 연방법원의 명령을 받으며 수조 원대 배상 리스크에 직면한 반면, Suno와 Udio는 메이저 레이블과의 라이선스 계약을 통해 소송을 ‘비즈니스 파트너십’으로 전환하고 있다.

‘소송으로 정면 돌파할 것인가, 협상과 정산 구조를 전제로 공존을 선택할 것인가’라는 질문은 이제 개별 기업을 넘어 AI 업계 전체의 생존 전략이자, 향후 저작권 질서를 다시 짜는 출발점이 되고 있다.

OpenAI, 저작권 소송서 '결정적 패배'… 반면 Suno는 워너뮤직과 라이선스 계약

AI 업계, 소송 vs 합의 갈림길… Anthropic 15억 달러 합의, Suno·Udio는 메이저 레이블과 손잡아

AI 업계의 저작권 전쟁이 격화되는 가운데, 기업마다 상반된 운명을 맞고 있다. OpenAI는 미국 연방법원으로부터 불법 복제 도서 데이터셋 관련 내부 문건 공개 명령을 받아 수조 원대 배상 위기에 처한 반면, AI 음악 스타트업 Suno는 워너뮤직그룹과 라이선스 계약을 체결하며 소송을 마무리했다. '싸워서 지느냐, 협상해서 살아남느냐'—AI 기업들의 저작권 대응 전략이 극명하게 갈리고 있다.

Suno, 워너뮤직과 역사적 라이선스 계약 체결

AI 음악 생성 플랫폼 Suno가 세계 3대 메이저 음악 레이블 중 하나인 워너뮤직그룹(WMG)과 라이선스 계약을 체결했다. 25일(현지시간) 월스트리트저널에 따르면, 이번 계약으로 워너뮤직이 Suno를 상대로 제기했던 저작권 침해 소송도 함께 종결됐다.

이번 계약의 핵심은 Suno가 워너뮤직의 라이선스를 받은 음원을 기반으로 새로운 AI 모델을 출시할 수 있게 됐다는 점이다. Suno는 텍스트 프롬프트를 입력하면 노래를 생성해주는 플랫폼으로, 내년 새 모델을 출시할 예정이다.

다만 무료 사용은 제한된다. 새 모델에서 곡을 다운로드하려면 유료 구독자여야 하며, 월간 다운로드 횟수에도 상한이 설정된다. 추가 다운로드를 원하면 별도 비용을 지불해야 한다. 워너뮤직 소속 아티스트와 작곡가들은 이 서비스에 자신의 음원을 제공할지 선택할 수 있다.

계약의 일환으로 Suno는 워너뮤직의 콘서트 검색 플랫폼 '송킥(Songkick)'도 인수한다. 구체적인 금액은 공개되지 않았다. Suno는 최근 24억 5,000만 달러(약 3조 4,000억 원) 기업가치로 2억 5,000만 달러(약 3,500억 원) 투자 유치를 발표한 바 있다.

메이저 레이블 3사, AI 음악 플랫폼과 줄줄이 합의

워너뮤직은 Suno와 라이선스 계약을 체결한 최초의 메이저 음악 레이블이 됐다. 이는 AI 음악 산업의 판도를 바꿀 수 있는 중대한 전환점이다.

워너뮤직, 소니뮤직그룹, 유니버설뮤직그룹 등 세계 3대 메이저 레이블은 지난해 Suno와 또 다른 AI 음악 플랫폼 Udio를 저작권 침해 혐의로 고소했다. 그러나 소송 대신 협상 테이블로 방향을 틀었다.

유니버설뮤직과 워너뮤직은 최근 Udio와도 라이선스 계약을 체결했다. 이로써 메이저 레이블들은 AI 음악 플랫폼과의 전면전 대신 공존 모델을 선택한 셈이다. 소송으로 상대를 무너뜨리기보다, 라이선스 수익을 확보하면서 AI 시대에 적응하겠다는 전략이다.

음악 업계 관계자들은 이번 합의가 다른 창작 분야에도 영향을 미칠 것으로 전망한다. AI 기업들이 저작권자와 사전에 협의하고 정당한 대가를 지불하는 모델이 새로운 표준이 될 수 있다는 것이다.

OpenAI는 정반대 상황… 내부 문건 공개 명령에 수조 원 배상 위기

Suno가 라이선스 계약으로 위기를 넘긴 것과 달리, OpenAI는 저작권 소송에서 결정적인 패배를 당했다.

미 연방지방법원 오나 왕(Ona Wang) 판사는 26일(현지시간) OpenAI가 'books 1'과 'books 2'로 명명된 대규모 불법 복제 도서 데이터셋을 삭제한 동기를 보여주는 문서를 원고 측에 넘기라고 판결했다. OpenAI 내부 법무팀에 대한 증언 녹취(deposition)도 진행된다.