Licenses, lawsuits and an open question: AI music in 2026

Major labels now sign licenses with Suno and Udio, yet lawsuits continue and a German court issued the first ruling against Suno. A calm map of where things stand.

By Dovva Studio Editorial · October 20, 2026

Two years ago, the relationship between major labels and AI music companies came down to one word: lawsuit. In October 2026 the picture is more mixed. There are licensing deals, there are new lawsuits, and there is a first ruling in Europe. What there still isn't is a final answer to the core question: can you train a model on copyrighted music without asking permission?

From lawsuit to deal

The first turn came on October 29, 2025. Universal Music Group (UMG) and Udio announced they were settling their copyright litigation with a "compensatory legal settlement" and signing licenses for recorded music and publishing. They promised a new platform for 2026, trained on "authorized and licensed music." In the meantime, according to UMG, Udio's existing product would stay available inside a "walled garden," with fingerprinting, filtering and other measures.

On November 19, Udio announced a similar deal with Warner Music Group (WMG), which also resolved their dispute. Udio clarified on its blog that the labels did not buy the company. What it signed were licenses to train new models on those catalogs and to work with their artists. Its platform will let users work with the voices and styles only of artists who choose to participate.

On November 25, 2025, WMG and Suno announced their own partnership, which also settled their litigation. According to Warner's press release, Suno would launch new, licensed models in 2026 and retire the previous ones. Downloading audio would also require a paid account, with monthly caps. Suno also bought the concert-discovery platform Songkick from WMG. WMG CEO Robert Kyncl described "pro-artist" AI as AI that commits to licensed models and gives artists and songwriters an opt-in for the use of their name, image, likeness, voice and compositions.

In September 2026, Suno launched its v6 models "in partnership with WMG, BMG, and Believe," a spokesperson told Variety. The company says v6 was trained on content licensed from those partners, on interactions from its community, and on its team's accumulated learnings.

The other half: the lawsuits continue

Not everyone signed. On September 18, 2026, Sony Music and UMG filed a second lawsuit against Suno in federal court in Massachusetts. They argue v6 still infringes their rights because it was partly trained on outputs of earlier models, which they consider unlawful. "V6 is not a fresh start; it is the fruit of the same poisoned tree," they wrote. The complaint lists 60,202 recordings. A Suno spokesperson called the claims "fundamentally flawed on both the facts and the law."

According to Music Business Worldwide, that second suit came after Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV refused to add more works to the original 2024 case, which remains open. In that case, Suno admitted in a September 1 filing that it obtained audio from YouTube for training, using a tool called YT-DLP. Variety also reports other recent lawsuits against Suno: one from publisher Round Hill Music and one led by singer Jason Isbell that seeks class-action status.

A first ruling in Europe

On July 31, 2026, the Munich Regional Court I largely ruled for GEMA, the German authors' society, against Suno. The case centered on six well-known works, including "Daddy Cool," "Rasputin" and "Forever Young." The court's press release says those works were reproducibly "memorized" in the v3.5 and v4 models. According to the court, they came out recognizable with simple prompts that gave only the lyrics, the style and the title.

The court held that Germany's text-and-data-mining exception does not cover that memorization. Applying US law to the training done in the United States, it found no "fair use" either. It also noted that Suno extracted those songs from YouTube by circumventing one of the platform's technical protection measures. The ruling is not final and can be appealed.

Meanwhile, on the charts

AI projects are already showing up in the rankings. In November 2025, Billboard recorded the first known case of an AI-based act on one of its radio charts. Xania Monet's "How Was I Supposed to Know?" entered Adult R&B Airplay at No. 30. Xania Monet is a project of the poet Telisha Jones.

What it leaves us with

The 2026 map is neither war nor peace. It is a licensing market being built while courts decide the rest. For anyone making music with these tools, the practical lesson is simple: know what your tool was trained on, read its terms, and don't build anything on imitating real artists.