Udio Users Can't Download Their AI Music Creations Anymore

An anonymous reader shares a report: As part of the settlement with Universal, Udio has amended its terms of service, and users can no longer download their outputs. This has AI music makers furious, and with good reason. Unfortunately, they have little recourse, as the contract they sign when creating a Udio account includes a waiver of the right to bring a class action.

Music is made by musicians, playing live

[MpVpRb]

So-called "AI music" is a misuse of the tech
Hopefully, the fad will fade fast

Re:

[Powercntrl]

A lot of today's pop acts involve collaborating on the lyrics, sung over backing tracks assembled on a computer using sample loops. What AI music generation brings to the table is you don't need to be wealthy or have industry connections to turn your idea into a song. Of course, without those wealth and industry connections, you're not going to be selling the end result anyway, so making AI songs is mostly just limited in usefulness as something for your own amusement. Also, an AI "band" can't go on tour

Re:

[Sigma 7]

Also, an AI "band" can't go on tour.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

If Vocaloid can do a concert, the team clearly can go on tour and do the event in different locations with their holograph tech to make them look 3D on stage.

It won't be the same as an acutal band, but it's still possible.

Re:

[Kisai]

There is literately a program called "music maker" that does this without AI.

The entire point of "AI music" is to fleece youtube and tiktok.

I'm sure you've seen dozens of youtube shorts or tiktoks with music you've never heard of in the background, even over commercial copyrighted content like the simpsons or south park. The big scam is to rip the heart of the episode, mirror it, put this shitty AI music in it, and then get free money from youtube from it's use.

Can't be bothered

[fleeped]

So, these people can't be bothered to make music themselves and can't be bothered to keep it at their own computers. Sounds like Entitlement with capital E, including a very, very false sense of trust on entities outside their little bubble.

Boo hoo.

Re:

[Megane]

We all know how the saying goes, "the cloud" is just another way to say "someone else's computer". While it would be nice to give a few weeks warning for a change like this, if the users cared they would have saved a copy when they created it.

Re:That's not how computers work

[aldousd666]

you used to be able to save it as MIDI files you could import into a DAW. In parts by instrument. That's much different than just saving the WAV

Re: That's not how computers work

[Tschaine]

Meanwhile, other companies are getting really good at stem extraction and pitch detection, so reverse engineering midi files from wave files is probably going to be pretty easy pretty soon.

Or maybe it is already. I'll admit I haven't been following this stuff closely, but I've seen pieces of it here and there.

Re:

[Kisai]

That's been doable for 20 years.

It doesn't work on really complicated music (eg vocals, chorus, orchestration) but it works for the vast majority of low-effort music, which includes AI music, guitar and piano solos, drum solos, anything that has a very solid melody. You can see this in youtube when it's AI identifies music "melodies" without claiming the actual track.

Anyone who is really musically inclined, can completely reverse engineer any song just from listening to it. I can do that, if I think about i

Re:

[allo]

The core feature of Udio was that you don't just get a mid-quality MP3 like you can download now with a few tricks, but the different parts of the song separated for further processing. They are changing it from a musical program into a toy.

If you're using AI to create music ...

[DaveyJJ]

You should be downloading every single track you create **immediately** after creating it. WAV and stems. If you didn't see the RIAA and music industry coming for Udio (and SUNO next, what do you bet?) and forcing them to close down or partner with industry, you're really being naive.

Did the users really sign contracts?

[PubJeezy]

Did the users really sign contracts? Or did they click accept on a TOS? Because I don't believe they're the same thing and the courts have consistently agreed with me. This "article" seems to be written from the perspective of the company. Saying that users have "little recourse" isn't journalism or well-reasoned commentary, it's simply wishful thinking from the grifters in question.

If you signed up for functional service that becomes non-functional, you don't have to keep paying. Full stop. Big Tech can't wipe out centuries of legal precedents about the existence of consumers have rights. This yet another example of the Verge representing the views of platform owners in every single conflict between owners and users.

Re:

[sosume]

In my country you cannot sign away your legal rights. So such a clause about class action would be invalid and possibly invalidate the entiire contract..

Re:

[allo]

When the ToS are the only thing that allows you to download the song first time, they are also able to change the ToS to no longer allow it. Depending on the phrasing of the prior version (thinking about things like "you have the full ownership") they may be required to provide the old works, though. But lawyers probably phrased it carefully such that downloading your works is only a privilege and no right and then you have little chance to enforce it.

Take a cab but not allowed to get off

[thesjaakspoiler]

Take another cab. Plenty of choices these days.

UDIO's TOS were never very encouraging

[zuki]

Even before this latest round of restrictions (which probably has something to do with WMG getting into a partnership [udio.com] with them) the TOS were reasonably tortuous and convoluted; as documented in several very detailed YouTube videos [youtu.be] by legal experts. They basically never gave users much privacy, as IIRC it squarely represented that UDIO could do as they pleased with the outputs, required attribution in commercial use, and at the very least could use them for training

For those who want to seriously dabble

Re:

[allo]

As long as AI output doesn't have much copyright you can mostly ignore the commercial use clauses, but the question is if they guaranteed you a right to download. Even when something has no copyright they are not required to allow you to download it, if they don't grant it in their ToS or do it voluntary.

Yeah I know you can get a copyright by editing it, but you get it because it is a human step. An automatic editing step after the AI generation will not grant Udio more rights than the AI generation itself.

\o/

[easyTree]

Now that music, a thing to spread joy, has been captured and destroyed, corporate ghouls will next be targeting the simple smile:

Smiles will become the property of Galaxy Wide Exploitation Company. All public displays of smiles will be accompanied by royalties paid to GWEC until such date as smiling has been removed from the human experience.

This is retroactive - please submit all your photos and videos and await invoice.