BMG never took Suno to court over that use, and the deal covers it all the same: the financial terms reach back over Suno's earlier use of BMG's recordings and published songs, for a sum that was not disclosed.
Suno and BMG have signed a worldwide deal covering both the recordings and the publishing works in BMG's catalogue, meant to underpin the new AI-music model Suno intends to build on licensed music.
A signature is not the catalogue. Only the recordings and songs whose artists and songwriters opt in are covered, so winning over BMG's roster is the work still to do. The pitch put to them in the announcement is that anyone who opts in keeps their rights protected and is paid for their music, with the questions over past use of BMG's recordings and published songs resolved. Anecdotally, Music Ally understands that opt-ins have been a hard sell across AI-music licensing arrangements generally. How much of BMG's catalogue Suno can train on depends on how many of them agree.
Two rightsholders have now licensed Suno: Warner Music Group and BMG. The company is still fighting court cases against Universal Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment, and it has struck no deal with Merlin, the licensing body for independents, even though it hired Merlin's onetime chief executive to run its own commercial operations.
Suno does not need a full slate of agreements with the majors and independents before its next model arrives, since it can train on whatever partners have already licensed. Restoring its standing with the music industry would take resolving the outstanding lawsuits and bringing the remaining major and independent rightsholders on board, and Suno has the $400 million it recently raised to put towards settling claims, paying advances and pledging royalty guarantees in future.
Cover image: “Music Studio Music Studio Sound Edited 2020 (taken on 2016-03-23 15.01.29, edited on 2019-12-25 18.04.44 by Mic JohnsonLP)” by Mic JohnsonLP, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0, cropped, resized, re-encoded.
