Sony files second Udio lawsuit over 30,117 recordings

Research report date: 21 July 2026

DAOrecords Signal publication: 21 July 2026 at 06:56:48 UTC

This daily brief records a second federal copyright action brought by Sony Music Entertainment and affiliated labels against Uncharted Labs, the company operating Udio. The filing is material because it moves more than 30,000 asserted recordings into a separate active lawsuit after the court declined to add a larger set to the original action.

Status: Filed complaint; allegations unresolved

Linked record: DAOR-SIGNAL-20260721-001

Factual reporting

Sony Music Entertainment and nine affiliated record companies filed a second federal copyright action against Uncharted Labs, the company operating Udio.

The complaint identifies 30,117 sound recordings that the plaintiffs allege Udio copied without permission for use in training its generative-AI music models. The plaintiffs describe those recordings as a subset of Sony-controlled works identified through forensic analysis of Udio's training corpus during discovery in an earlier lawsuit.

The new case follows a June 29 ruling that denied Sony leave to add more than 30,000 additional recordings to the original action. The ruling did not decide whether the newly identified works were infringed; it left Sony able to pursue separate claims concerning them.

The complaint asserts three principal claim groups:

• copyright infringement involving post-1972 recordings;
• infringement involving pre-1972 recordings protected under the Music Modernization Act;
• circumvention of technological measures under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

Sony also alleges that Udio obtained recordings by stream-ripping material from YouTube. In the earlier action, Udio acknowledged that its training data included recordings obtained from YouTube and maintained that its use of copyrighted material qualifies as fair use.

Sony seeks injunctive relief, statutory damages, damages connected to alleged circumvention, legal costs, and other relief. The allegations have not been adjudicated, and the filing does not establish that Udio is liable.

Why it matters to the music industry

The new lawsuit materially expands the number of Sony-controlled recordings placed into active litigation against Udio, moving the dispute beyond the limited illustrative works identified when the original case was filed.

It also demonstrates how discovery access and audio fingerprinting can be used to investigate the contents of an AI-training corpus at catalogue scale. That has implications for labels, independent rightsholders, dataset operators, model developers, forensic providers, distributors, and collective licensing initiatives.

The complaint separates several legal and technical questions that should not be collapsed:

• whether recordings were copied into a training corpus;
• how those recordings were acquired;
• whether technological protections were circumvented;
• whether the copying was licensed;
• whether the use qualifies as fair use;
• whether generated outputs reproduce protected expression;
• what damages or remedies may apply.

The case also sits alongside licensing and settlement arrangements reached by other major rightsholders, while Sony remains in active litigation with Udio.

DAOrecords analysis

For DAOrecords, the strongest operational signal is the increasing importance of preserved training-data evidence and catalogue-level identification.

An artist or independent label may not have access to discovery materials or a major label's forensic resources. DAOrecords should therefore distinguish among:

• possible dataset exposure;
• a verified match inside a named corpus;
• evidence that a model developer obtained or retained a recording;
• evidence of training or another model-related use;
• evidence of output similarity;
• an allegation of infringement;
• a judicial finding.

The new complaint should enter the Parent litigation and policy tracker as a filed allegation, not as proof that every listed recording was unlawfully used. It may justify review of dataset-evidence procedures, source-acquisition records, fingerprinting capabilities, evidence preservation, and counsel-ready catalogue summaries.

It does not by itself require a Child blueprint change, create a release block, establish an artist claim, or prove that any individual DAOrecords catalogue asset appears in Udio's training data.

Assessment

• Impact level: High
• Confidence: High that the complaint was filed and asserts 30,117 recordings; no conclusion is reached on the merits
• Affected components: AI Litigation Tracker; AI Rights Profile; Rights + Metadata; Ecosystem Relations; Music Data Connectors; Evidence Preservation
• Canonical report: The Verge (opens in a new tab)
• Source publication: 20 July 2026 at 22:19 UTC
• Primary filing: Sony Music Entertainment et al. v. Uncharted Labs, Inc. (opens in a new tab), Case No. 1:26-cv-6120
• Corroborating original reporting: Music Business Worldwide (opens in a new tab)
• Commercial data value: High for litigation tracking, catalogue-risk monitoring, training-data provenance, licensing strategy, and forensic music-data services
• Limitations: The asserted copying, stream-ripping, circumvention, infringement, fair-use failure, and damages remain allegations. The reviewed materials did not include Udio's answer in the new action or a judicial ruling on liability. The structured source timestamp is The Verge's publication time, not the court filing time.

Daily synthesis

The filing is a high-impact litigation record, but its operational value depends on preserving evidence status.

For DAOrecords, a complaint can establish that claims were filed, identify the works and legal theories asserted, and support a dated litigation-tracker entry. It cannot establish that a specific catalogue asset was used unlawfully, that fair use fails, or that liability has been determined.

Record index