Sony Fights AI Over 30,000 Songs Including Harry Styles' 'As It Was'

Sony Music Entertainment isn't done fighting for its catalog — not by a long shot. The label giant has filed a sweeping new lawsuit against AI music generator Udio, putting more than 30,000 copyrighted tracks on the line, including Harry Styles' smash hit "As It Was."

A Catalog Under Siege

The sheer scale of this legal action is staggering. According to The Verge, Sony filed the suit in a New York federal court, identifying songs that span decades and genres — from Elvis Presley's "Hound Dog" to Beyoncé's "Say My Name," with tracks from Britney Spears, Johnny Cash, and Harry Styles caught in the crossfire too. And in a detail that should make any AI company nervous, Sony explicitly states that those 30,000-plus titles represent only "a small portion" of the works it believes Udio has infringed. The full scope of the damage could be considerably larger.

How Sony Built Its Case

This new lawsuit didn't materialize from nowhere. It's the direct offspring of an earlier 2024 legal battle in which Sony, alongside Universal Music Group and Warner Records, first took aim at Udio and its AI music-making rival Suno. Once Sony gained access to Udio's training data through the discovery process, the label deployed an "audio fingerprinting" technique to identify thousands of additional songs it claims were copied and fed into Udio's generative AI models without authorization.

Sony initially tried to fold those newly identified tracks into the existing lawsuit — a motion that would have ballooned the complaint from 333 original works to the massive catalog it's now pursuing. A judge rejected that expansion attempt, which is precisely why Sony came back swinging with a brand-new filing. This time, those 30,000-plus songs are the entire subject of the suit, and the label says it reserves the right to grow the list even further.

The AI Admission That Could Haunt Udio

One of the most striking elements of Sony's complaint is a direct quote it attributes to Udio, in which the company allegedly acknowledged that its generative AI models were built by exposing the program to "a vast amount of different kinds of sound recordings" — including content pulled from YouTube. That kind of admission, if it holds up in court, could prove pivotal. Training AI on copyrighted recordings without licenses or compensation is precisely the behavior the music industry has been mobilizing against, and it's a battle that's only intensifying as AI-generated music becomes more commercially viable.

The Industry Divide

What makes Sony's aggressive stance even more interesting is that it stands in contrast to moves made by its former co-plaintiffs. Both Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group have since reached settlements with Udio and pivoted to partnership deals, signaling that some corners of the music business are choosing collaboration over confrontation as AI reshapes the industry. Sony, for now, is holding firm — and holding the line for artists like Harry Styles, whose on-stage moments and chart-dominating music continue to make him one of the most culturally significant acts of his generation.

Sony is asking the court to bar Udio from any further infringement of its works. The financial stakes are enormous: the label is seeking up to $150,000 in statutory damages per infringed work. Do the math across 30,000 songs and you're looking at potential liability in the billions — a number that makes this one of the most consequential copyright battles the music world has ever seen.

As AI-generated music continues to blur the line between inspiration and imitation, artists and labels across the board — from SZA and Steve Lacy to legacy icons — are watching this courtroom drama play out with enormous stakes attached. The outcome could define how the next era of music is made, monetized, and protected.