Negotiations between the music industry and AI music startup Suno have stalled, with no deal in sight.
That’s according to the Financial Times on Tuesday (April 7), which cited people familiar with the matter as saying that Universal Music Group and Suno have only seen little substantive progress in their talks in recent months.
Sources also told the FT that Suno hasn’t been able to reach a deal with Sony Music Entertainment as the music giants reject its model for distributing AI-generated music.
“We have ongoing engagement, but there is no path forward with the current proposal,” a person involved in the negotiations told the newspaper.
Warner Music Group, one of the three major labels, struck its own deal with Suno in November, but according to the FT’s sources, the partnership has seen minimal progress.
“We have ongoing engagement, but there is no path forward with the current proposal.”
A Person involved with the negotiations (via Ft)
In November, Warner Music and Suno said they have struck what they call a “first-of-its-kind partnership, which “open[s] new frontiers in music creation, interaction, and discovery, while both compensating and protecting artists, songwriters, and the wider creative community”.
The deal settled previous litigation between the companies.
The Warner Music deal arrived as Suno, along with its peer Udio, faced litigations from the music giants over their AI training models. Following a period of legal battles, Universal Music Group settled with Udio in October 2025, followed by Warner Music in November 2025.
Udio’s agreements with the two majors included licensing deals for a new AI music platform expected to launch this year.
Suno also settled with WMG in November, but the AI company remains locked in legal battles with UMG and Sony Music, as well as European music rights orgs, including Denmark’s Koda and Germany’s GEMA.
In a statement to the FT, Suno said: “We want to work cooperatively with the music industry to unlock new sources of revenue for artists.”
However, Suno still faces criticisms from artists. In February, a coalition of artist representatives published an open letter calling on the music community to reject Suno.
“We want to work cooperatively with the music industry to unlock new sources of revenue for artists.”
Suno (via ft)
In the open letter titled ‘Say No to Suno’, the artist reps described the company as a “brazen smash and grab” platform, accusing it of using “unauthorized AI platform machinery trained on human artists’ work”.
Published on February 23 on the Music Technology Policy blog, the letter was signed by figures including Ron Gubitz, Executive Director of the Music Artist Coalition; Helienne Lindvall, songwriter and President of the European Composer and Songwriter Alliance; and Chris Castle of the Artist Rights Institute.
The artists argued that AI-generated music floods platforms and “dilutes the royalty pools of legitimate artists from whose music this slop is derived.”
French streaming platform Deezer disclosed in January that it was receiving approximately 60,000 fully AI-generated tracks per day — around 39% of all daily deliveries to the platform.
Up to 85% of streams on that content were found to be fraudulent, demonetized, and removed from the royalty pool, according to the company.
Suno, which closed a $250 million Series C funding round in November 2025 at a $2.45 billion post-money valuation, reported in February that it has reached 2 million paid subscribers and $300 million in annual recurring revenue. The company says over 100 million people have used its platform.
Less than two weeks ago, Suno released version 5.5 of its platform, introducing a voice capture feature and two personalization tools that the company says are aimed at attracting first-time creators and working professionals.
The launch arrived days after MBW founder Tim Ingham questioned where Suno’s WMG-licensed V6 model was, noting in his latest Tim’s Take column that it had been 114 days since the settlement was announced with no new licensed model in sight.
Despite its legal challenges, Suno has been investing heavily in music industry relationships. The company has hired former Warner Music Group executive Paul Sinclair as Chief Music Officer, former Merlin CEO Jeremy Sirota as Chief Commercial Officer, and former Spotify executive Sam Berger as Senior Director of Artist Partnerships.
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