Warner Music Group Partners with Suno in “Landmark” Deal
- Martina
- 26 November 2025, Wednesday
The music industry has entered a new era. Warner Music Group, one of the world’s three major labels, has announced what it calls a “groundbreaking partnership” with Suno, the popular AI music generator it previously sued. But what does this alliance actually mean for artists, songwriters, and creators? Let’s break it down!
From a Lawsuit to a “Landmark” Licensing Deal
In June 2024, WMG, along with the other two major labels, UMG and Sony Music Entertainment, jointly filed a lawsuit against AI music generators Suno and Udio for “mass infringement” of copyright. Both companies are accused of using copyrighted music to train their models without proper authorization.
Fast forward 17 months, and the dispute between Suno and WMG is resolved, with the two going from adversaries to partners in a new licensing deal (which also settles the previous litigation). The two companies announced the news in separate statements, with the record label calling the partnership a first-of-its-kind.
According to the announcement, this ambitious collaboration aims to “open new frontiers in music creation, interaction, and discovery, while both compensating and protecting artists, songwriters, and the wider creative community.” WMG brings its artist development expertise and extensive music catalog, while Suno contributes what it describes as its “best-in-class” generative AI technology.
“This landmark pact with Suno is a victory for the creative community that benefits everyone. With Suno rapidly scaling, both in users and monetization, we’ve seized this opportunity to shape models that expand revenue and deliver new fan experiences,” said Robert Kyncl, the CEO of WMG.
Mikey Shulman, Suno CEO, echoes this view, saying: “Our partnership with Warner Music unlocks a bigger, richer Suno experience for music lovers, and accelerates our mission to change the place of music in the world by making it more valuable to billions of people. Together, we can enhance how music is made, consumed, experienced, and shared.”
What Does this Partnership Mean for Artists?
While both WMG’s and Suno’s statements focus on their shared visions, goals, and innovation, many wonder what this partnership truly means for musicians, beyond allowing Suno to – now legitimately – train its AI model on their music.
The ultimate goal, as one (Suno) might say, is to create a sustainable music ecosystem powered through AI. Essentially, by using high-quality licensed music, Suno can improve its products and develop more robust features and tools for music creation. This should enhance the experience for artists using the platform to create or collaborate on their art.
Meanwhile, the partnership will reportedly give WMG artists “full control over whether and how their names, images, likenesses, voices, and compositions are used in new AI-generated music.” At the same time, it is expected to introduce new monetization pathways and opportunities for artists and songwriters to earn money.
“The partnership will build on what 100 million creators love about Suno while allowing artists and songwriters to benefit from new revenue streams, and adding powerful new interactive features that offer opportunities for deeper fan engagement,” highlights Kyncl in the WMG announcement.
To support this vision, Suno is expected to make several changes to the platform in 2026, which will go beyond “launching new, more advanced and licensed models.”
For example, downloading audio generated with Suno will only be available with a paid account going forward. Songs created on the free tier will not be downloadable; users will only be able to play and share them. Additionally, paid tiers will have limited monthly download caps, with the option to pay for extra downloads. This should make a significant difference in making sure artists are compensated when others use their music in their own projects.
Additionally, as part of the deal, Suno has acquired Songkick, the live music and concert-discover platform from WMG, which should boost music discovery and create new potential to “deepen the artist-fan connection.”
However, even with the partnership outlined and the big-picture agenda shared with the public, important uncertainties remain. It’s known that Suno’s current models will be phased out once the new ones are launched, but it’s unclear how the prompts of the new models will behave or how certain voices and styles will sound.
Also, what happens if certain WMG artists decide to opt out and not make their music available for the model’s training? How will this impact the final product? What if many artists choose to opt out? How exactly will opt-in artists be fairly compensated? And will using Suno-generated music for commercial purposes change under the new system? Many questions remain unanswered.
The companies promise transparency, but concrete details are still to be revealed (and will probably be shared closer to the 2026 rollout.)
Will AI Licensing Deals Become the New Normal?
The WMG-Suno licensing deal is another piece of the puzzle in a much larger movement shifting the relationship between music rights holders and AI developers. Just a week earlier, the recording company also settled a lawsuit with the other music AI generator, Udio, and secured a licensing deal for a “next-generation” AI-powered platform for music creation, listening, and discovery.
UMG took a similar step by settling the litigation with Udio in October 2025 and collaborating with them on its own licensed AI music platform. Both WMG’s and UMG’s platforms are scheduled to launch in 2026.
WMG also finalized a deal with Stability AI, a UK-based AI company best known for its text-to-image model Stable Diffusion. Their initiative is said to concentrate on creating “professional-grade tools that enable artists, songwriters, and producers to experiment, compose, and produce using ethically trained models.”
In another story, all three majors signed licensing deals with AI music technology company KLAY Vision Inc. earlier this month (November 2025), making the company the first AI startup to achieve such a milestone. The agreement will allow KLAY to train its model on tens of thousands of recordings while working toward “reimagining listening” and “leveraging the potential of AI” to further enhance music experiences for listeners (at the time of writing, not much more is known about what this actually means for both fans and artists).
These moves suggest that major labels are shifting from confrontation to collaboration with AI companies and are said to promote transparency, artist control, and fair compensation in the process.
However, not all music organizations are convinced. Entities like Denmark’s Koda, Germany’s GEMA, and the United Musicians & Allied Workers (UMAW), along with prominent artists and creators, remain critical of AI’s role in the industry and continue to push for stronger protections.
And with global copyright frameworks still falling behind technological advances, questions about fair use, training data, and the ownership of AI-generated works remain unresolved.
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