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Michael Buckner for Variety Universal Music Group sued the distribution service DistroKid on Tuesday, claiming in a federal lawsuit that the service infringed on the label’s copyright by pumping out “AI-generated ‘slop’ that siphons revenue and listeners from the legitimate artists and rightsholders.”
In the 52-page lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court in Delaware, UMG and its Capitol Records imprint claimed DistroKid improperly presented itself as a music distributor dedicated solely to serving artist-created work to distribution platforms such as Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube and more. Instead, DistroKid runs afoul of the policies of such streaming services and the mission of the Music Fights Fraud Alliance, of which it’s a member, by building an “AI-slop pipeline” that continued even when the service was told its tracks infringed on artists’ work. It cites an example of a “Lofi Chill“ artist that produced 4,562 tracks within a 12-month period.
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