Warner Music just announced a settlement of its lawsuit against Suno (leaving UMG Recordings and Sony Music in the Suno lawsuit). The settlement and business deal sound similar to the ones Udio struck with Warner Music and UMG Recordings (see Related Stories below).
WARNER MUSIC GROUP AND SUNO FORGE GROUNDBREAKING PARTNERSHIP
Companies will collaborate on next-generation licensed AI music that empowers the creative community and opens new revenue opportunities for artists and songwriters
NEW YORK, Nov. 25, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — Warner Music Group (Nasdaq: WMG), one of the world’s largest music companies, and Suno, the leader in AI music, today announced a first-of-its-kind partnership that will open new frontiers in music creation, interaction, and discovery, while both compensating and protecting artists, songwriters, and the wider creative community. The deal brings together Suno’s best-in-class AI capabilities with WMG’s artist development leadership and expertise at the intersection of music and technology. The deal also settles previous litigation between the companies.
Robert Kyncl, CEO, WMG said: “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. AI becomes pro-artist when it adheres to our principles: committing to licensed models, reflecting the value of music on and off platform, and providing artists and songwriters with an opt-in for the use of their name, image, likeness, voice and compositions in new AI songs.”
Mikey Shulman, CEO, Suno said: “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. This means we’ll be rolling out new, more robust features for creation, opportunities to collaborate and interact with some of the most talented musicians in the world, all while continuing to build the biggest music ecosystem possible.”
In 2026, Suno will make several changes to the platform, including launching new, more advanced and licensed models. When the new models launch in 2026, the current models will be deprecated. Moving forward, downloading audio will require a paid account. Suno will introduce download restrictions in certain scenarios: specifically, in the future, songs made on the free tier will not be downloadable and will instead be playable and shareable. Paid tier users will have limited monthly download caps with the ability to pay for more downloads.
With a goal to continue building with the music community, Suno has also acquired Songkick, the live music, concert-discovery platform, from Warner Music Group, and will continue to run it as a successful fan destination, bringing together the power of interactive music with live performance. The combination of Suno and Songkick will create new potential to deepen the artist-fan connection.
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. Artists and songwriters will have full control over whether and how their names, images, likenesses, voices, and compositions are used in new AI-generated music. Together, WMG and Suno are committed to forging a blueprint for a next-generation licensed AI music platform.
About Warner Music Group
Warner Music Group (WMG) brings together artists, songwriters, entrepreneurs, and technology that are moving entertainment culture across the globe. Operating in more than 70 countries through a network of affiliates and licensees, WMG’s Recorded Music division includes renowned labels such as 10K Projects, 300 Entertainment, Asylum, Atlantic, Big Beat, EastWest, Elektra, Erato, First Night, Fueled By Ramen, Nonesuch, Parlophone, Reprise, Rhino, Roadrunner, Sire, Spinnin’, Warner Records, Warner Classics, and Warner Records Nashville. WMG’s music publishing arm, Warner Chappell Music, has a catalog of over one million copyrights spanning every musical genre, from the standards of the Great American Songbook to the biggest hits of the 21st century. Warner Music Group is also home to ADA, which supports the independent community, as well as artist services division WMX. Follow WMG on Instagram, X, TikTok, LinkedIn, and Facebook.
Here’s part of Suno’s announcements about the changes:
How Suno is evolving
This partnership has implications on how our product will evolve. Here are a few highlights of what’s to come:
The way you create is only getting better
You’ll still be able to create original songs the way you love today. Our core experience remains focused on giving everyone access to powerful music creation.
A new generation of powerful music models
This partnership enables us to build a new generation of Suno models using high-quality licensed music. These models will surpass even v5, the best music model the world has seen to date.
New experiences for fan engagement
We will be introducing content from WMG artists who opt in for the use of their names, images, likenesses, voices, and compositions to be used in new AI-generated music. These will be new creation experiences from artists who do opt in, which will open up new revenue streams for them… and allow you to interact with them in new ways. You’ll be able to build around participating artists’ sounds and ensure they get compensated.
Downloads, quality and safety
We know being able to download the songs you make in Suno is very important to the Suno community, and that functionality isn’t going away. Moving forward, a paid Suno account will be required to download songs from the product, with each paid tier enabling a specific number of downloads each month (with more details to be shared soon).
Studio remains our pro powerhouse
Suno Studio will continue to be our most powerful creation tool and will remain untouched, including unlimited download functionality. If you rely on Studio for advanced workflows, that experience is staying as is, with exciting new feature rollouts ahead.
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