Suno Adds Audio Watermarks to AI Music as Legal Troubles Pile Up

Suno, a popular platform for generating AI music, announced a major change to how it handles audio files. The startup plans to add hidden watermarks and tracking tools to every track created on its system. This decision comes as the company tries to stop bad actors from abusing its tools while simultaneously fighting massive lawsuits from major record labels over unauthorized copyright use. These new rules aim to bring more transparency to the music market. The startup limits song downloads to stop streaming royalty scams The platform will now embed audio fingerprints into tracks so other services can easily identify where the music came from. Co-founder Mikey Shulman stated that these tools are designed to resist tampering without changing how a song sounds. To help spot copyrighted lyrics, the business is also partnering with a tracking service called Musixmatch. Along with the watermarks, Suno introduced a strict download policy to prevent mass distribution. The goal is to stop people from generating thousands of fake songs, uploading them to streaming apps like Spotify, and using automated bots to listen to those tracks. Earlier this year, a man pleaded guilty to making millions of dollars through this specific kind of fraud. The updated community guidelines now officially ban spam, fake engagement, and using a real person's voice without permission. The company faces multiple lawsuits over copyright and data breaches These safety updates arrive during a very difficult time for the startup. Heavyweight players like Universal Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment are currently suing the business. The labels claim the platform trained its artificial intelligence models on copyrighted recordings without asking for approval. Just last week, a German court also ruled against the platform in a similar case involving a local licensing agency. Legal headaches are not limited to just music rights. The startup is also dealing with a class action lawsuit in Massachusetts regarding a massive data breach from last year. That incident reportedly exposed the personal information of over 55 million users and revealed that the platform scraped data from sites like YouTube to build its technology. By forcing transparency onto its own audio files, Suno is trying to prove it can be a legitimate tool for creators rather than just a quick way to generate spam. However, a few watermarks might not be enough to satisfy judges and record labels who feel the foundation of the technology was built on stolen work.