Suno introduces audio watermarks and download limits amid copyright disputes
AI music startup Suno is adding watermarks to all generated audio and capping downloads to curb fraud and mass distribution, the company announced in a blog post, as it faces legal challenges over copyright.
This article was drafted with AI assistance from multiple sources and was reviewed and approved by a human editor before publication.
AI music startup Suno announced on Thursday that it will embed watermarks in every audio file its models produce and impose new limits on how many songs users can download. The measures, detailed in a blog post by co-founder and CEO Mikey Shulman, are designed to prevent the mass spread of AI-generated tracks and to fight fraud, the company said.
Suno said it is deploying "new audio watermarking and fingerprinting technology" that helps resist AI fraud, though it gave few specifics about how the system works. The watermarks will appear in all audio outputs, giving streaming platforms the ability to flag content as AI-generated or block it outright. The company also plans to introduce download caps to curb the mass distribution of songs, but did not disclose the exact limits.
Shulman wrote that the watermarking is necessary to meet "emerging industry standards" for labeling AI content. He added that it should ultimately be up to artists and platforms to decide whether to tell listeners that a piece of music was made with AI.
In addition, Suno is working with Audible Magic and Musixmatch, along with other third-party firms, to screen uploaded audio files and lyrics. The company reiterated that it does not use artist names in its training metadata and that users cannot include specific artists or copyrighted songs in their prompts.
The announcement comes as Suno faces legal pressure. A Munich court recently ruled that the company trained its models on protected music without authorization, a decision Suno disputes and may appeal. The company has also been sued alongside rival Udio by major record labels, which accused them of using copyrighted music on a "massive scale" without permission. In a separate development, Warner Music reached a licensing agreement with Suno in November of last year, covering the use of WMG artists' music and likenesses.
The music industry has been increasingly vocal about AI-generated tracks. A coalition of labels including Sony, Universal, and Warner has called for AI-generated "slop" to be disqualified from music charts. Suno's new watermarking is similar in principle to Google's SynthID, which can trace AI content even after editing or compression, though it remains unclear how Suno's technology works. Google, which has begun licensing SynthID to other companies, says the system has labeled the equivalent of 60,000 years of audio from its Gemini models and more than 100 billion images and videos.