It seemed like an area of culture that remained for the moment in the background before the million-dollar demands of Hollywood production companies and publishing giants, but hostilities are also intensifying in the field of pop music: through AIthere are composers who create singers that do not exist, who have a considerable following on streaming platforms and who get them million-dollar contracts. And meanwhile, distributors and producers defend their corralito with demands for the tools that generate these new phenomena. The figures are beginning to be in the millions, so this has only just begun.
The Xania Monet case. The poet Telisha Jones, 31, tried a new method in the summer of 2025 to capture her verses: she introduced her poems into Sunothe artificial intelligence platform capable of converting text into complete songs. The tool not only put music to their words, but gave them a powerful voice, with the timbre of a professional R&B singer. Jones’ lyrics were brought to life through an algorithm trained on millions of previous recordings. This is how Xania Monet was borna digital avatar with a presence on social networks and, shortly after, a catalog that soon circulated on social media platforms. streaming.
The climb. In just two months, Xania Monet accumulated figures that many human artists take years to achieve. Your theme’How Was I Supposed to Know‘ rose to first place in the Billboard R&B Digital Sales Chart. This same month, the song reached number 30 on the Adult R&B Airplay: that is, real radio stations are playing it. Another song, ‘Let Go, Let God‘, more in the thematic parameters of gospel, reached number 21 on Hot Gospel Songs. All of this points to a reach that is not exactly small: 17 million total views in the United States in two months. It reached a peak of more than 5 million streams in just seven days. On Spotify, the number of monthly listeners is around 530,000, while on social networks, the avatar accumulates close to 770,000 followers between Instagram, TikTok and YouTube.
The millionaire contract. From there, success (and money). According to Billboardseveral record labels initially requested meetings with Jones, but she refused to activate her camera and sing for the executives, for obvious reasons. But the offers have ended up arriving, one of them from 3 million dollars. Some labels linked to major record companies such as Universal, Sony or Warner withdrew from the bid for Monet because their respective companies have lawsuits against Suno for copyright infringement. The winner was Hallwood Media, an independent company owned by a former president of the legendary Geffen Records. It is not his first signing of these characteristics: weeks ago he had signed imoliveranother music creator by using Suno.
The doubts. The case raises multiple legal and ethical questions: who is really the author of a song whose lyrics are written by a human but whose music, voice and arrangements are generated by a machine? Jones claims that she owns all songwriting and production rights, based on Suno’s terms of service. However, the United States Copyright Office has established that will not grant protection to works whose “expressive elements are determined by a machine”making it unclear who is going to pocket the $50,000 generated from rights to date.
But there is also the eternal issue of generative AIs: Xania Monet’s voice bears notable similarities to established singers, such as Beyoncé. If their voice was generated by training the model with protected recordings, to what extent would the original artists not have to be compensated? That’s without going into the primary ethical question, with almost existential overtones: the implications of an artist without a body and without years of practice behind her competing with flesh-and-blood musicians for space on the lists.
The imoliver case. He was ahead of Xania Monet and behind him is Oliver McCann, who He defines himself as a “musical designer”since he also lacks traditional musical training. His work with Suno consists of introducing textual indications into the platform describing atmospheres, emotions or genres and polishing it. In July 2025 he was signed by Hallwood Media, which has replicated that same strategy with Monet: in August a song was uploaded to streaming, and a series of songs followed with marketing support, to finally release a complete album.
The legal controversy. In June 2024, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) launched what would become one of the most significant legal battles of the music industry in recent times. On behalf of Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group, he presented simultaneous lawsuits against Suno and Udiothe two dominant platforms in music generation by artificial intelligence. They were accused of massive and systematic copyright infringement: both companies had fed their AI models millions of protected songs without obtaining licenses or permissions.
In August, Suno acknowledged that this was indeed the case, and that this practice was perfectly legal under the doctrine of “fair use”. According to her, the songs generated are new and legal. So the companies increased their attack, adding to their lawsuit an accusation that they had obtained their songs through Youtube piracy and ripping: “the largest theft of intellectual property in human history.” To resolve this conflict (which has led companies like Anthropic to pay 1.5 billion dollars to resolve a lawsuit of the same type, but in the literary field) we must answer a fundamental question, and one that will determine the future of people like Monet and imoliver: who is the legal owner of the songs generated by these platforms?
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