Koda sues U.S. AI music service for copyright infringement

The Danish rights organization Koda has filed a lawsuit against the American AI music service Suno for copyright infringement.

According to Koda, Suno has used Danish musical works without permission or payment, including songs such as “Barbie Girl” by Aqua, “A Beautiful Life” by Christopher, “Final Song” by Mø, “Sleeping My Day Away” by D-A-D, “Move Your Feet” by Junior Senior, and “Sunshine Reggae” by Laid Back.

Koda states that there is concrete evidence that the mentioned works have been copied and used illegally in connection with the generation of music through Suno’s service. None of the songwriters behind these works have, according to Koda, given permission for the use or received any payment from Suno.

“Artificial intelligence has great potential and can serve as an inspiring and creative tool. But in this case, we are dealing with an American tech company that has knowingly stolen the Danish musical heritage and is now using it to build its own competing business. This is not innovation – it is the biggest music theft in history. It is illegal, and it poses a threat to the economy of Danish music and to our shared culture,” says Koda’s CEO, Gorm Arildsen.

The case marks the first time a Danish rights organization has filed a lawsuit against an AI service.

In collaboration with the industry organization IFPI Denmark, Koda has prepared a report estimating that AI-generated music could lead to a revenue loss of up to 28 percent in the Danish music industry by 2030.

“It is completely untenable that it is necessary to file a lawsuit to get Suno and similar AI services to pay for the music they use. If we want to continue having talented artists who create new Danish music in the future, it requires that we protect our music scene and do not leave it up to cynical tech companies and their algorithms to shape and tell our story,” says Koda’s legal and political director, Nicky Trebbien.

He emphasizes the need for political regulation:

“There is a need for political action now to ensure that AI music services develop responsibly on a broad scale. There must be proper and responsible frameworks, fair payment to artists, and legislation that makes it absolutely clear that when you use music to train artificial intelligence and offer an AI service on the market, you must pay for it.”

Jesper Binzer, frontman of D-A-D and co-writer of “Sleeping My Day Away”, supports Koda’s lawsuit:

“We should not be afraid of new technology, but here Suno has directly taken songs that belong to others and thrown them into their machine. In our case, ‘Sleeping My Day Away’. It’s insane. It’s our talent that lies inside those machines. It is simply our talent that Suno has taken. It is blood, sweat, and tears.”

In a previous investment round, Suno was valued at 500 million dollars and, according to Koda, is in the process of attracting additional investment, which could increase the valuation to 2 billion dollars. Koda describes the business model as being based on the unlawful use of copyright-protected music.

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