Originally Posted by John Lawrence Schick
Originally Posted by Bill Draper
Hypothetical.
I pay suno $10/month.

I get suno to write the lyric, and the music, with some minimal prompts….heart break, break up, r&b, uptempo, horns, big bass and drums.

Suno spits out song.

I edit the lyric to my liking. I edit the music to my performance abilities and liking.

I register the lyric with ascap and list suno with a 65% share of royalty. I take 35% because I’m commercializing the song….getting it out there.

I perform the song at licensed venues with good audience reception.

For argument sake, let’s say the song is exactly like one you wrote, and you inform me of that.

I say whoops….and hand over my 35% share to you,and you let suno know, and they hand over their 65%……

I doubt that's how it's going to work out in the real World Bill. What would stop someone from registering a song with no publisher. Here's how I register a work before I acquire a publisher:

Composer
SCHICK, JOHN LAWRENCE
000000000/ASCAP
Interest Party Status
Identified Authoritative
Own %
50
Collect %
50
Original Publisher
PUBLISHER UNKNOWN
Interest Party Status
Unidentified Non-Authoritative
Own %
50
Collect %
50

Notice, this could very well be a fully AI‑generated work. Or let's say a fully AI‑generated track from someone is used on Greys Anatomy. It's registered with ASCAP in my example. Or some publisher that accepts AI tracks.

In my opinion, ASCAP, BMI, and SOCAN shouldn't have even mention this "partially AI generated" baloney. It just encourages more fraud.

I am disappointed to hear you are not getting clear answers from ASCAP. But it is my understanding at this moment that Suno does not claim ownership or any interest in anything produced on their site. Why? Because it removes them from any lawsuits (theoretically) and puts legal responsibility on the user. But for that to happen, the user owns it outright. This makes the user the owner of the master 100% just like you own your master is you paid for it. That is the lions share of streaming royalties, though I have zero experience with your expertise which is sync licensing. But don't you receive payment as the owner of your masters that is separate from your writer royalty? As I understand it Spotify pays 90% of the royalty to the owner of the masters and 10% to the songwriters. I would love to know if it is different than that, but I keep getting this as the answer for how it really breaks down. Master ownership is critical and it makes most of the money. What is your take on that? The songwriting issue is how courts will honor AI use in creative works. Let's keep it simple. I write a lyric, Suno writes music for it. I am 50% creator straight up. But if I also wrote the melody but the vocal is AI, do I get 100%? What if I wrote the melody but Suno altered the last line of the chorus. How does that affect my ownership? In a studio, if a singer goes up instead of down, she has changed that melody, but in traditional cases, the songwriter is not robbed of their royalties based on that change which differed from their original. That happens in nearly any studio session. I have no idea how courts will side, but likely is that they will screw the little guys while protecting the labels and publishers in any way possible.

Brian Austin Whitney
Founder
Just Plain Folks
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