Udio Admits YouTube Audio Scraping in Sony Music Lawsuit Filing
AI music generator Udio has admitted in a court filing — part of the ongoing Sony Music copyright lawsuit — that it trained its model on audio scraped from YouTube videos. Udio is already being sued by major labels and artists for copyright infringement described in filings as occurring "on an almost unimaginable scale." The admission is significant because YouTube's CEO has explicitly stated that scraping YouTube videos for AI training would constitute "a clear violation" of the platform's terms of service, raising the question of whether YouTube itself will take action against Udio.
Why It Matters
Udio's court admission creates a tripartite legal problem: direct copyright liability to labels, ToS exposure to YouTube, and a precedent that court proceedings may be the mechanism forcing public disclosure of training data sourcing. Full court filing via Music Business Worldwide.