Warner Music Settles Legal War with Suno in Landmark AI Partnership (www.hollywoodreporter.com)

Warner Music Group has settled its infringement lawsuit with AI music generator Suno and become the first major label to formally partner with the company. The pact — terms undisclosed — requires Suno to roll out “new, more advanced and licensed models” while phasing out its existing models, and includes artist protections such as opt-in for use of name/image/voice/compositions. WMG also negotiated download and distribution limits: only paid Suno subscribers can download tracks, downloads will be capped, and higher-volume access will cost more. Suno is acquiring WMG’s Songkick as part of the broader deal. The announcement follows Suno’s recent $250M funding round that values the startup at $2.45B. Technically and strategically, the agreement is a landmark: it sets a commercial blueprint for AI music firms to train and deploy models on rights-cleared catalogs, rather than relying on contested corpora, and it targets the downstream problem of automated mass uploads that flood streaming services. For the AI/ML community this signals stronger industry expectations around licensed training data, enforceable usage controls (opt-ins and download caps), and monetization tied to artist compensation — all measures likely to influence model design, dataset provenance practices, and platform governance across music-generation startups and other creative AI sectors. Ongoing litigation with other labels means the deal may be persuasive but not yet universal.