AI Startup Suno Faces Backlash Over Viral Sad Girl Songs Generated Without Artist Permission
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Suno is an AI startup that can generate original "sad girl" piano ballads from any text prompt. Their tool went viral this week for setting the MIT license text to music.
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Suno was founded in 2023 by former Meta and TikTok employees and has backing from Microsoft. It likely trained on copyrighted songs without artist permission.
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Over 200 artists signed a letter protesting AI tools that could replace human musicians. The legal ownership of AI-generated songs is complicated.
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We tested Suno by generating songs about "Moonshark" and "barbarians with CRTs." It created unique lyrics and music for each, showing creativity.
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But ethical issues remain around training data sourcing and potentially replacing human artists. An AI influencer asked if Suno's catchy songs are a "grim milestone or good one."