Making music with AI: Suno, Udio and where copyright stands in 2026
How Suno and Udio work, what they cost, the deals they've signed with record labels and whether you can use their songs on YouTube, TikTok or in a business.
Type “an upbeat pop song about summer at the beach, with a female voice” and, in under a minute, you have a track with lyrics, music and vocals. That’s what Suno and Udio do, the two most popular AI music tools. But there’s a huge legal battle behind them that’s worth understanding before you use them.
How they work
- Describe the style: genre, mood, instruments, type of voice.
- Write the lyrics or let the AI make them up.
- The AI generates two or more versions of the song.
- You can extend it, change sections or separate the vocals from the music.
In many cases the result is hard to tell apart from a studio recording.
Suno
- The most widely used. Its latest model came out this year.
- Free plan to try it, but with limits and no commercial rights.
- Paid plans from around $8 a month. According to several outlets, since September 2026 each plan has a monthly download cap.
- This fall it began launching models trained on licensed music from labels like Warner and BMG.
Udio
- Highly rated for sound quality and vocals.
- After reaching deals with Universal and Warner, it’s turning into a licensed service, with more restrictions on what you can download and do with songs.
The legal battle, explained simply
In 2024 the major labels, Universal, Sony and Warner, sued Suno and Udio for training their AIs on copyrighted songs without permission. Since then:
| Label | With Suno | With Udio |
|---|---|---|
| Warner | Settled (late 2025) | Settled (late 2025) |
| Universal | Still in court | Settled (October 2025) |
| Sony | Still in court | Still in court |
On top of that, the American Federation of Musicians has sued the labels for licensing recordings without paying the performers. In short: this isn’t settled.
Can I use AI songs in my videos?
It depends on three things:
- Your plan. Free plans usually don’t allow monetized use. Paid plans do, under their terms.
- The platform. YouTube and TikTok accept AI-made music but may limit monetization if a track sounds too close to an existing song.
- Where you live. In the US and many other places, a work created purely by an AI isn’t protected by copyright the way human work is. In other words, anyone could copy it.
Practical tip: keep a copy of your plan’s terms and the date you created each song. If anyone ever makes a claim, it’ll serve as evidence.
Good ways to use it
- Background music for your videos or shorts, without third-party copyright claims if you’re on a commercial plan.
- Demos: musicians use it to test ideas before recording.
- Jingles and personalized songs for birthdays or events.
What not to do
- Ask it to imitate a real artist’s voice or copy a specific song.
- Upload AI songs to Spotify while posing as a human artist. Platforms are removing thousands of tracks like these.
Need a voice for narration too? Read AI voices: narration, dubbing and cloning.
