UMG and Sony sue to make DistroKid reveal its AI song upload numbers
The major labels want data on how many AI-generated tracks the huge indie distributor pushes to Spotify and Apple Music, as evidence against AI music maker Suno.
What happened: Universal Music Group and Sony Music filed a new legal action in a New York federal court demanding that DistroKid, the world's largest music distributor, disclose how many AI-generated songs it uploads to streaming services each month, including ones made with Suno. DistroKid has reportedly refused to hand over any documents since receiving a subpoena last month. The labels say DistroKid runs its own AI-detection tool and tracks this data internally, but has called the request irrelevant to the broader case.
Why it matters: UMG and Sony are suing Suno for allegedly training its AI on copyrighted songs without permission. Suno's main legal defense is fair use, which depends partly on whether a wave of AI-made tracks is crowding out human-made music in the market. The labels say DistroKid is the one company positioned to show how much AI music actually reaches real listeners, since Suno itself doesn't track where its output ends up once it leaves the platform.
How it works, plainly: DistroKid is a middleman: artists upload songs to it, and it delivers them to Spotify, Apple Music and other services. The labels say that between March and September this year, DistroKid delivered close to 12 million tracks to a single major streaming service alone, more than every other distributor combined. UMG and Sony argue this scale makes DistroKid's internal AI-tracking data the clearest window into how much machine-made music is flooding playlists and competing with paid human artists.
The rollout: This filing is separate from, but closely tied to, UMG's own September lawsuit accusing DistroKid of enabling 'AI slop' uploads that dilute royalty payouts to real musicians; Sony is not part of that case. DistroKid says it is cooperating with the legal process as a third party and disputes the underlying wrongdoing claims. The disclosure fight will play out in court before any ruling on Suno's fair-use defense, so the AI-music volume numbers aren't public yet.