AI · MUSIC INDUSTRY
Suno releases v6 trained on Warner music; the settlement required retiring the unlicensed model, and Believe and TuneCore lift their distribution block
Image = K-EnterTech Hub
Suno released its new music generation models, v6, on September 9 and began rolling them out to users. The models were trained on music licensed from Warner Music Group combined with Suno's own user data. "We're starting from scratch," chief executive Mikey Shulman told The New York Times on September 9. Jack Brody, the company's chief product officer, said v6 was "built from the ground up," in an interview with Axios the same day.
The reason a new model exists at all is a term in the settlement Warner signed last year. Warner left the copyright suit it had filed in 2024 with Universal Music Group and Sony Music, settling on November 25, 2025 and signing a licensing deal that required Suno to retire the unlicensed version of its service within a year. In the same transaction Suno acquired the concert-discovery service Songkick from Warner. "By being early, you have a seat at the table, instead of just sitting and watching what's happening and pursuing lawsuits," said Robert Kyncl, Warner Music's chief executive.
Distribution moved in the same week. Believe and its subsidiary TuneCore announced a global strategic partnership with Suno on September 8 and reopened distribution to tracks Suno generates, which they had blocked automatically since April 30. Artists and labels join on an opt-in basis, consenting catalogues are used to train Suno's industry partner model, and participants are compensated.
The litigation splits two ways. Universal and Sony are continuing the 2024 case and amended their complaint on August 25 to add a claim that Suno circumvented YouTube's access controls. The music publisher Round Hill Music filed a separate copyright suit in August rather than settle, and on September 1 four musicians including Jason Isbell and David Lowery filed a publicity-rights class action in federal court in Massachusetts. Suno said those claims are without merit.
Warner's settlement required retiring the unlicensed model… downloads restricted to paid accounts
The Warner settlement announced on November 25, 2025 combined the end of the litigation with a licensing agreement. Suno agreed to release new licensed models in 2026 and to deprecate its existing models at that point. Downloads became available only on paid accounts; free users can play and share generated songs but not download them. Paying users face a monthly download cap and must buy additional downloads beyond it.
Use of an artist's name, image, likeness, voice and compositions in new AI songs was handled as an opt-in. "AI becomes pro-artist when it adheres to our principles: committing to licensed models, reflecting the value of music on and off platform, and providing artists and songwriters with an opt-in for the use of their name, image, likeness, voice and compositions in new AI songs," Kyncl said at the time, as reported by Music Business Worldwide on November 25, 2025. The two companies also agreed to build a product letting Warner artists opt in to features such as fan remixing.
The agreements behind v6 include revenue sharing with rights holders, though Brody declined to disclose financial terms. "The wrong way to think about this partnership is to think of it as a deal about the data," he told Axios. "It's really much broader than that. This is a deal about being able to build new products with rightsholders, with artists and with the industry." Music from participating Believe and TuneCore artists, and from BMG, is being added to the models following the September 8 announcement.
Kyncl is a former senior YouTube executive, one of the few music-industry chiefs to have lived through a technology fight from the other side. "That experience taught me that things can be solved. It starts by not assuming that everybody is a bad person on the other side," he told The New York Times. Drew Thurlow, author of "Machine Music: How A.I. Is Transforming Music's Next Act," said in the same article that "the relationship that the major labels have with technology is vastly improved from 20, 25 years ago. They are basically media companies that operate like tech companies."
Believe went from an April 30 block to a September 8 partnership… participation is opt-in
Believe and TuneCore began automatically blocking tracks made on unlicensed generative AI services on April 30. Denis Ladegaillerie, Believe's founder and chief executive, told Music Business Worldwide at the time that the generative AI detection technology the company had deployed was 99% reliable. Suno was among the services covered.
The September 8 partnership reverses that measure for Suno alone. Tracks created through the industry partner model become eligible for distribution via Believe and TuneCore and reach Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music and YouTube. Participating artists also get support through Spark, Believe's artist development programme.
"For 20 years, we have been helping artists and labels reach their full potential, and increasingly that means working with new technology like AI," Ladegaillerie said in a statement quoted by Rolling Stone on September 8, adding that the partnership "gives them a meaningful choice over how they can participate, protect their rights." TuneCore is a distribution channel whose self-releasing artists have earned more than $4 billion (about 5.34 trillion won) in cumulative payouts, by the company's own count. With the gate reopened, tracks made on Suno have a route onto the major streaming services without passing through a major label catalogue.
Suno v6 comes in three models… 100 million users, 2 million paying, $300 million in annual recurring revenue
v6 arrived as three models: the flagship v6 for Pro and Premier subscribers, the more exploratory v6-wild on the same paid tiers, and v6-mini for free users. Features include editing a specified section in plain language, a mashup function combining elements of multiple tracks, instrument isolation and sampling, generation from text, audio, images or video, and rewriting individual lyrics without rebuilding the track. The interface has changed little from earlier versions, and a one-line prompt turns into a finished track in seconds. "If you were to exclude v6 and v6-wild for a moment, v6-mini would be the best music model in the world," Brody told Variety on September 9.
Training combined licensed Warner music with Suno's own user data, and carried over technical and preference learnings from the earlier models, which are being retired. Users are still blocked from prompting the model directly for a song in the likeness of a known artist or song, Brody said.
Audio screening for unauthorised content, audio watermarking, fingerprinting and download limits were named as safeguards. Since September 3, Pro subscribers can download 20 songs a month and Premier subscribers 60. The caps are aimed at the practice of uploading mass-generated tracks to streaming services to manufacture plays.
More than 100 million people have made songs with the service and paid subscribers number more than 2 million, the company says; the paid plans include commercial rights to the music users make. Annual recurring revenue passed $300 million (about 400.8 billion won) as of February. Suno raised more than $400 million (about 534.4 billion won) in a Series D round on June 3 at a valuation of $5.4 billion (about 7.21 trillion won). "People feel really good when they're creative," Shulman said. "The company exists to let people feel those warm and fuzzy feelings of being creative." The same market holds Udio, ElevenLabs and Google's Lyria.
Isbell and three others file a publicity-rights class action… no copyright claim in the complaint
Jason Isbell, David Lowery of Camper Van Beethoven, Guy Forsyth and Eduardo Calle filed suit in federal court in Massachusetts on September 1. The complaint alleges 17 violations of state and territorial publicity-rights laws and contains no copyright claim. Its core allegation is that entering a musician's name as a prompt produces output imitating that musician's voice and style. The plaintiffs say name-based prompts still work despite Suno's stated policy restrictions and that the company has "built ways around its own filters."
The complaint characterises name-responsiveness as "a designed, systemic commercial feature of the platform" rather than a technical fault. The plaintiffs seek class certification, monetary damages, disgorgement of Suno's profits from non-consensual identity use, costs and a jury trial. Suno said the claims are without merit.
Round Hill Music filed a separate copyright suit against Suno in August, declining to settle. An advertisement in which Mary J. Blige called the service "dope" also came down last week. Blige ended the advertising partnership over a deal made by "someone who presented themselves as Ms. Blige's official representative" that she was "uncomfortable" with, and a Suno representative said the company had learned it negotiated with someone not authorised to sign on her behalf, according to Variety and The New York Times on September 9.
Artist reaction runs in more than one direction. Dr. Dre and Timbaland have discussed using AI, and The Weeknd is among the artists letting fans remix their work on Hook. The singer SZA said in a March interview, "I feel like I'm at war because of A.I." Damon Krukowski, an independent musician and legislative director of United Musicians and Allied Workers, said: "No one has explained why it's a good idea to start making music without musicians being involved."
The singer-songwriter Ali Gatie told Axios he first tried Suno years ago out of curiosity, was not impressed, and came back as the technology improved; he now turns rough ideas into demos before finishing songs with his producers. "Overall, my stance on AI is that while it certainly has its faults, it is our job as artists to help ensure it becomes a net positive for music, rather than sitting on the sidelines complaining and pretending it doesn't exist," Gatie said.
Asked about artists' views, Shulman said "what is said in public versus behind closed doors are two very different things." Suno held a demonstration of its Studio platform at a small theatre in Manhattan in July, filled with producers and independent artists.
Phase two is a fan remixing tool… Hook and Spotify are building the same feature
Brody described the model release as the first half of a two-phase plan. The second is a tool letting artists opt in to having fans remix songs from their catalogues, a category that also holds Hook and Spotify's forthcoming AI remix feature. The product is still in development, alongside discussions about how far safeguards for artists should go. Brody called it a "consented version of derivative music experiences" and said licensed remixes could open a revenue stream, in his Variety interview on September 9.
Gatie is already testing the idea, letting fans remix his own songs on Suno by changing lyrics and production styles. "I believe this interactive listening experience will be huge in the future, and if there is a way to monetize it, it will be a great benefit for artists as well," he said. On sceptical artists, Brody said "I don't think any one moment is going to change the mind of somebody who is a skeptic," adding that using the tool is what most changes how people see it.
More than half of new uploads on Deezer are AI-generated… 85% of streams on fully AI tracks were fraudulent
Source = Deezer
Upload volume is the backdrop to the download caps and watermarking written into the Warner settlement. Deezer said on July 21 that more than half of the new music uploaded to the service each day is generated by AI, at a rate of 90,000 tracks a day. In its April release the figures were 44% and 75,000 tracks a day; in January 2025 they were 10,000 a day. Deezer detected and tagged 13.4 million AI-generated tracks over 2025 and puts its detection accuracy at 99.8%.
Source = Deezer
AI-generated music accounts for 1% to 3% of all streams on Deezer. Of the streams generated by fully AI-generated tracks, up to 85% were judged fraudulent and excluded from royalty payments. The fraud rate across Deezer's whole catalogue is 8%. "We have reached a pivotal moment, but we have the technology to keep track of the development," chief executive Alexis Lanternier said.
In a Deezer survey of 9,000 people across eight countries, 80% said AI-generated music should be clearly labelled for listeners. A study by CISAC and PMP Strategy put close to 25% of creators' revenues, about €4 billion, at risk by 2028. Between the April 30 block and the September 8 partnership, daily AI uploads on Deezer rose from 75,000 to 90,000.
Spotify deleted 75 million spam tracks in 12 months… Apple Music added AI disclosure tags in March
Spotify said last September, when it announced three AI music policies, that it had removed more than 75 million spammy tracks over the preceding 12 months. The policies cover unauthorised vocal impersonation, a spam filter targeting mass uploads, duplicate registrations with altered metadata and tracks under 30 seconds, and AI credits reported through the DDEX standard. "Our new spam filter will flag tracks and uploaders using these tactics," said Sam Duboff, Spotify's global head of marketing and policy. Distributors participating in the credits system include Believe, CD Baby and DistroKid.
Apple Music introduced AI disclosure tags in March, covering artwork, audio, composition and video, all self-reported by rights holders with no automated verification. Deezer has been labelling AI-generated music for listeners since June and excludes it from recommendations and editorial playlists. YouTube requires disclosure of realistic AI-generated elements viewers might mistake for genuine footage.
Source = company announcements and press reports. In Korea, terms are set by each distributor and platform
Universal settled with Udio but is still suing Suno… rights holders split two ways
Source = company announcements and court records
Universal Music Group settled its lawsuit against Udio on October 29, 2025 and agreed to build a licensed AI music creation platform with it; the settlement amount was not disclosed. Udio's existing product runs in a controlled environment with fingerprinting and filtering applied, and the new service was announced for 2026. Warner also settled with Udio and signed a licensing deal. Udio has not yet released its new version.
BMG signed a global alliance with Suno covering recorded and publishing repertoire on August 12, resolving past infringement claims. Universal and Sony are continuing their suits and have not reached a settlement of the kind struck with Udio. Both declined to comment to The New York Times, and both have signed deals with other AI companies.
Source = company announcements and press reports
U.S. recorded music revenue up 6.9% in the first half… streaming grew 4.7%
Source = RIAA
U.S. recorded music revenue reached $5.97 billion (about 7.98 trillion won) in the first half of 2026, up 6.9% year on year, according to figures the Recording Industry Association of America released on September 7. Streaming accounted for $4.9 billion (about 6.55 trillion won), or 82% of the total, and grew 4.7%. Paid subscriptions came to $3.4 billion (about 4.54 trillion won), up 6.4%, and ad-supported streaming to $900 million (about 1.20 trillion won), up 3.7%.
Physical revenue rose 25.9%, with CDs up 58.6% and vinyl up 17.7%. Sync licensing reached $232 million (about 310 billion won), up 18.2%. The categories that lifted the overall 6.9% sat outside streaming. For a company whose revenue comes from distribution fees, 4.7% streaming growth is a number that is hard to match from an existing catalogue alone, and it overlaps with the terms under which Believe put a new source of supply under contract.
TuneCore said in its 2026 Accelerator report that artists in the programme generated 24 billion new streams last year, up 17%. Believe said the partnership will produce new product experiences built with Suno that let artists collaborate with fans and share in the revenue.
KOMCA withdrew its AI music registration rules 22 days after they took effect… labelling duties stop at the creator
The Korea Music Copyright Association (KOMCA, 한국음악저작권협회) approved amendments to its music work registration rules and its copyright trust agreement terms at a board meeting on July 28 and put them into effect on August 3. The amendments allowed AI-assisted music to be registered for the human-created portion where a person had participated substantially and led the composition, arrangement or songwriting. On August 18 the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism (문화체육관광부) sent a formal letter saying broader discussion was needed, and the association withdrew the amendments at its eighth board meeting on August 25.
"The board agreed with the National Assembly and the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism that this requires sufficient discussion across the cultural sector," KOMCA president Lee Si-ha (이시하) said, as reported by The Kyunghyang Shinmun (경향신문) on August 25. Registrations completed before the withdrawal go through cancellation, and pending applications are suspended until new standards are set. KOMCA had said in April 2025 that it would not register AI-created works at all.
Korea's AI Framework Act imposes no duty on music platforms to label or manage AI-generated tracks. "The EU AI Act spells out obligations across providers, distributors and deployers, while Korean law has a structural gap at the platform operator stage," Song Min-sun (송민선), a research fellow at the Korea Information Society Development Institute (정보통신정책연구원), told The Hankookilbo (한국일보) on March 5. A bill amending the Network Act (정보통신망법) to place labelling duties on platform operators and publishers has been introduced.
"It is time to design rights management and revenue distribution systems suited to the AI era," Lee Jong-pil (이종필), chief executive of the music technology company Neuton (뉴튠), said at the Newtype Enter Summit on June 12, presenting a Music DNA technology that decomposes generated tracks and compares them against existing databases, as reported by Money Today (머니투데이) on June 14. The design follows the logic of YouTube's Content ID, tracing source works and feeding them back into payouts.
Warner extracted the retirement of the unlicensed model and an opt-in over names and voices as settlement terms. Korea is still suspended at the question of whether the human-created portion can be registered at all.
That Isbell and the other plaintiffs sued on publicity rights rather than copyright bears on Korea too, where the basis for contesting use of a name or voice also sits outside copyright law. The terms on which AI-generated tracks enter distribution remain in the contracts of individual distributors and streaming services, and no Korean distributor has disclosed on what terms it enters an overseas distributor's opt-in list.
Sources
· Ben Sisario, “An A.I. Giant Made an Enemy of Record Labels. Can It Play Nice?”, The New York Times, September 9, 2026. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/09/arts/music/suno-new-ai-model-warner-music.html
· Kerry Flynn, “Suno launches new AI music models with Warner, BMG”, Axios, September 9, 2026. https://www.axios.com/2026/09/09/suno-v6-ai-music-warner-bmg
· Corbin Bolies, “Suno Tries to Break Into Music Mainstream With New Label-Backed Model ‘v6’”, Variety, September 9, 2026. https://variety.com/2026/music/news/
· Ethan Millman, “TuneCore Reverses Course on Suno, Now Will Distribute Its AI-Generated Music”, Rolling Stone, September 8, 2026. https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-industry-news/
· “A New Partnership with Believe and TuneCore”, Suno official blog, September 8, 2026. https://suno.com/blog/believe-partnership
· “Believe and Suno Announce Strategic Partnership”, Believe press release, September 8, 2026. https://www.believe.com/press-release/believe-and-suno-announce-strategic-partnership/
· “Suno inks global licensing deal with Believe”, Music Business Worldwide, September 8, 2026. https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/suno-inks-global-licensing-deal-with-believe/
· “Warner Music Group strikes ‘landmark’ deal with Suno; settles copyright lawsuit against AI music generator”, Music Business Worldwide, November 25, 2025. https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/warner-music-group-settles-with-suno-strikes-first-of-its-kind-deal-with-ai-song-generator/
· “Jason Isbell Sues Suno Alleging AI System Is Using Musicians’ Identities Without Consent”, Consequence, September 2, 2026. https://consequence.net/2026/09/jason-isbell-sues-suno/
· “Suno sued by musicians including David Lowery and Jason Isbell”, Music Ally, September 2, 2026. https://musically.com/2026/09/02/suno-sued-by-musicians-including-david-lowery-and-jason-isbell/
· “Round Hill Files Lawsuits Against Suno, Anthropic”, The Hollywood Reporter, August 2026. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/music/music-industry-news/round-hill-files-lawsuits-against-suno-anthropic-1236675713/
· “Suno Inks High-Profile Partnership Deal With Believe & TuneCore”, Digital Music News, September 8, 2026. https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2026/09/08/suno-believe-deal/
· “Suno Launches V6 Music Models Built With Warner Music, BMG and Believe”, Unite.AI, September 9, 2026. https://www.unite.ai/suno-launches-v6-music-models-built-with-warner-music-bmg-and-believe/
· “Suno raises over $400 million, pushing valuation to $5.4 billion”, Music Business Worldwide, June 3, 2026. https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/suno-raises-over-400-million-pushing-valuation-to-5-4-billion/
· “AI music exceeds 50% of daily uploads on Deezer”, Deezer Newsroom, July 21, 2026. https://newsroom-deezer.com/2026/07/ai-music-exceeds-50-percent-daily-uploads-deezer/
· “AI-generated tracks represent 44% of new uploaded music”, Deezer Newsroom, April 20, 2026. https://newsroom-deezer.com/2026/04/ai-generated-tracks-represent-44-of-new-uploaded-music/
· “Spotify has deleted 75m+ tracks in ‘spammy’ AI music crackdown”, Music Business Worldwide, September 25, 2025. https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/spotify-has-deleted-75m-spammy-tracks-as-it-unveils-new-ai-music-policies/
· “AI Music Distribution Policy: How Every Platform Treats AI in 2026”, LabelGrid, 2026. https://labelgrid.com/blog/content-distribution/ai-music-distribution-policy-how-every-platform-treats-ai-in-2026/
· “Universal Music settles Udio lawsuit, strikes deal for licensed AI music platform”, Music Business Worldwide, October 29, 2025. https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/universal-music-settles-udio-lawsuit-strikes-deal-for-licensed-ai-music-platform/
· “RIAA Reports $6 Billion U.S. Recorded Music Revenue in H1 2026”, The Source, September 7, 2026. https://thesource.com/2026/09/07/riaa-2026-recorded-music-revenue/
· “TuneCore Says Its Accelerator Program Generated Over 24B New Streams for Artists Last Year, Up 17%”, Billboard, 2026. https://www.billboard.com/pro/tunecore-accelerator-report-2026-program-24b-new-streams/
· “KOMCA bans copyright registration of AI-composed music”, Billboard Korea (빌보드코리아), 2025. https://billboard.co.kr/editorial/news/article/komca-ai/
· “KOMCA withdraws AI-assisted music copyright registration”, The Kyunghyang Shinmun (경향신문), August 25, 2026. https://www.khan.co.kr/article/202608251836001/
· “Copyright for AI-assisted music runs into legal and institutional gaps”, The Kyunghyang Shinmun (경향신문), August 10, 2026. https://www.khan.co.kr/article/202608102033005/
· “Apple moves to label AI-made music… overseas platforms ahead of Korea's AI Framework Act”, The Hankookilbo (한국일보), March 5, 2026. https://www.hankookilbo.com/news/article/A2026030517080004695
· “Who owns AI-made music? K-pop industry needs a new copyright order”, Money Today (머니투데이), June 14, 2026. https://www.mt.co.kr/future/2026/06/14/2026061213394272926
Quotation practice — text in double quotation marks is reproduced as reported by the outlet named; unquoted description summarises reporting. Where a quote is taken from another outlet's report, the outlet and publication date are given.
Exchange rate — won conversions use the September 9, 2026 rate of 1,336.10 won to the dollar. Euro figures are not converted.
Basis — Deezer upload and fraud figures are the company's own detection data; U.S. revenue figures are RIAA retail-value estimates. The Isbell and Round Hill suits are at the filing stage and no court ruling has been issued.