The American Federation of Musicians has filed its opposition to the motions to dismiss brought by Universal Music Group, Inc., Warner Records, Inc., and Atlantic Recording Corp. in its lawsuit over the labels’ licensing deals with AI companies.
In the filing, submitted to a New York federal court on Friday (September 4), the union says those deals let recordings made by its members be “fed into AI systems for commercial exploitation.”
The musicians have not been paid for that use, the AFM says.
Warner settled with Udio in November 2025, then days later became the first major to settle with Suno.
Universal struck a settlement and licensing deal with Udio in October 2025, and has not settled with Suno.
The union is represented by Eyad Asad of Cohen, Weiss and Simon LLP. You can read the filing in full here.
The case turns on Article 21(a) of the Sound Recording Labor Agreement, the union’s collective bargaining agreement with the record companies.
Article 21(a) covers what the contract calls a new use of a recording, meaning its use for a purpose the agreement does not otherwise cover.
The AFM first sued in June and filed an amended complaint on July 24, alleging that the companies breached the SRLA by licensing recordings made by its members to the two AI music companies without paying or crediting them.
Universal asked the court to throw out the case on August 5, arguing that Article 21(a) sets no rate of its own and instead imports one from whichever separate AFM agreement governs the new use.
No such agreement covers AI use, UMG argued, so no payment is owed.
Warner Records and Atlantic filed their own motion on August 14.
Warner Music Group Corp., the parent company the union dropped from the case in August after it argued it was not a proper party, had told the court in July that the AFM brought the lawsuit “in an improper attempt to place a judicial thumb on the negotiation scales.”
The AFM‘s answer is that Article 21(a) is “reasonably susceptible to more than one interpretation,” and that its own reading of it is plausible, which the union says is all that is required to survive a motion to dismiss.
“The AFM does not ask the Court to rewrite the SRLA or supply terms the parties did not agree to,” the AFM wrote. “It asks the Court to enforce what the parties wrote: a payment and notice regime when a signatory company uses a covered recording for a purpose not covered by the SRLA.”
The brief also turns to the copyright complaints that Universal, Warner, and other record companies filed against Udio and Suno on June 24, 2024.
“Defendants’ position is especially untenable given what they told the courts in June 2024,” the AFM wrote.
Those complaints alleged that the AI companies were “replacing the work of human artists with massive quantities of AI created sounds … that substantially dilute the royalty pools paid out to artists,” the AFM‘s brief notes, and warned that AI-generated recordings risk “overrunning the market for human-made sound recordings.”
The union also points to Universal and Warner‘s public statements on their settlements with the two AI companies, which it says presented the deals as proof of a “commitment to do what’s right by our artists and songwriters” and “a victory for the creative community.”
AFM-represented musicians did not share in the settlement proceeds, the union alleges.
The filing also reproduces a passage from the July 21 pre-motion conference, in which US District Judge Edgardo Ramos put a question to the labels.
“You presumably now, based on what Mr. Asad has said, are using that music and have licensed with AI companies to train their models and are therefore, presumably, benefiting from that use,” Judge Ramos said, according to the transcript quoted in the brief. “And so why shouldn’t you pay the authors of that music?”
The union quotes a second passage from the same hearing, in which counsel for Warner set out how the SRLA‘s video game and foreign licensing provisions came about.
“I have represented the employer parties here since 2009, when both the video game provisions and the foreign licensing provisions were added,” Warner‘s counsel said, according to the brief. “Both of those provisions were added as a result of a dissimilar dispute, which was a question as to whether or not there was, in fact, an applicable AFM agreement for those types of licenses, and then it was resolved at the bargaining table.”
The AFM argues that history shows the parties treated the reach of existing union terms as disputed before bargaining specific rates.
The union further argues that the SRLA‘s sampling provisions supply a rate for part of the conduct at issue, because they cover encoding part of a recording into a computer for playback in another song.
Even under the labels’ own construction of the contract, the AFM wrote, “the sampling provisions provide an existing contractual payment reference; at minimum, they make dismissal premature.”
A separate section argues that Article 21(a)‘s notice requirement stands on its own, and that the labels’ reading would let a company defeat it by never filing notice.
“In other words, a company’s own failure to provide notice would shield it from liability for that very failure,” the AFM wrote.
Udio‘s forthcoming licensed platform, reported to be called Starstruck, is to offer four modes named Cover, Reimagine, Remix, and Create, each built around specific opted-in artists and recordings.
The AFM cites those modes in arguing the licenses reach beyond model training.
Sony Music, which has not settled with either AI company, is not a party to the AFM case.
The union and the labels are negotiating the next SRLA, with AI at the center of the talks, and briefing on the dismissal motions is due to conclude on September 11.
In a statement issued to MBW in the summer, a UMG spokesperson pointed to the company’s AI licensing deals and its bargaining history with the union.
“Universal Music Group has been at the forefront of protecting the rights and advancing the interests of artists and songwriters in the age of AI – striking responsible AI licensing agreements to ensure they are compensated, leading the charge for legislation to further protect them and taking legal action against bad actors.”
The UMG spokesperson added: “The AFM chose this route during our collective bargaining negotiations, and we will continue to work to resolve any issues through these negotiations, as we have in the past.
“We expect to continue our strong working relationship with the AFM built on mutual respect for the talented musicians in our industry.”
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