Udio has launched its Version 1.5, offering users new AI-powered song creation features.

The launch comes at a somewhat odd time, though, as the company is currently dealing with a lawsuit from major record labels and the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) alleging “unimaginable scales” of copyright infringement.

• READ MORE: Listen to some of the AI songs that RIAA allege copyright infringement by Suno and Udio

The new update includes improved audio quality – more clarity, instrument separation, musicality and more, according to Udio – a dedicated creation page for easier access to songs and generation features, and the ability to download stems.

There’s also key guidance, the ability to remix audio using Udio’s tech, and an expanded set of languages, including Mandarin, Korean and more. There’s also now shareable lyric videos, too, which Udio hopes will improve shareability.

Udio is an AI company that allows music creation via text prompts, enabling users to turn ideas into professional-quality tracks.

But like any generative AI, it has to be trained on existing content, which isn’t always cleared through all the necessary legal channels before it’s used. So while Udio, for example, might spit out a completely new song, the fact it’s used existing copyrighted work as inspiration gets the company into murky waters, legally speaking.

RIAA’s lawsuit against Udio – and Suno, another AI-powered music making platform – claims both are engaging in copyright infringement “at an almost unimaginable scale,” and says they are trained unlawfully on the music catalogues owned by the big three record labels: Universal, Warner and Sony.

The 34-page lawsuit has been well received across the music industry, by artists and business executives objecting to both the scraping of data without permission or remuneration, and the ability of AI to churn out derivatives of existing art at speed and scale.

Learn more about the new update at Udio.

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