Warner Music Group Cracks Down on Unauthorized AI Use

Warner Music Group has issued a warning to AI developers prohibiting the use of its extensive music library for training AI models.

The company, which represents artists including Coldplay, Megan Thee Stallion and Led Zeppelin, said in a letter to companies developing AI that they must obtain a license to use its content.

Companies without a license are barred from scraping or crawling Warner’s music recordings and live performances to train AI models, the company said.

In addition to songs, the record label also issued a warning over scraping related literary works, metadata and album artworks.

“Warner Music Group believes that machine learning and AI technologies have creative potential for artists and songwriters,” the letter reads. “However, it is imperative that all uses and implementations of machine learning and AI technologies respect the rights of all those involved in the creation, marketing, promotion and distribution of music.”

The letter references EU Directive 790/2019, which allows data miners to reproduce works unless they receive explicit confirmation from rightsholders that they cannot use the content.

“We will take any necessary steps to prevent the infringement or other violations of our

artists’ and songwriters’ creative works and rights,” the letter warns.

Related:Major Record Labels Sue AI Music Platforms Over Copyright Infringement

Warner Music’s letter of warning to tech companies follows an earlier notice from Sony Music.

Record labels including Warner Music are increasingly looking to protect their vast libraries of content from being used to train AI models without permission.
Both Warner Music and Sony were listed as plaintiffs in lawsuits filed by the Recording Industry Association of America against AI music generation platforms Suno and Udio for alleged mass infringement of copyrighted materials, stemming from illicit training practices.