Universal Music Group filed suit against DistroKid on September 15 in Delaware federal court, and the dispute is less about AI music than about how it gets labelled.
UMG Recordings, Capitol Records and Capitol CMG are the plaintiffs. Their filing runs 52 pages and carries five counts: deceptive trade practices under Delaware law, direct copyright infringement, vicarious infringement, and direct and vicarious infringement of pre-1972 sound recordings.
What they want is steep. Statutory damages of up to $150,000 for each work in question, an injunction, attorney fees, and an order to destroy infringing copies. The complaint includes a jury demand.
The evidence is a pile of release counts. One account, Lofi Chill, shipped 4,562 tracks in twelve months, which the filing converts into 20 to 30 albums a month. Two others, Chill Flow Radio and Mellow Vibes Radio, managed 1,901 and 1,615. Analysis cited in the complaint found raw Suno output in more than 97 percent of the first and 98 percent of the second.
DistroKid’s share of the traffic is part of the argument. The labels say it handles over half of everything uploaded to streaming services each week.
None of that targets disclosed AI music, the plaintiffs stress. Their objection is to a distributor selling machine output as if artists stood behind it.
