Sony Music AI Deepfake Takedowns Top 260K, Report Says

Sony Music’s AI deepfakes crackdown is intensifying: As of September’s end, the major label had fired off north of 250,000 cumulative soundalike-track takedown demands.

That concrete figure came to light in a recent Financial Times piece, which pointed to over 260,000 deepfake takedown requests submitted to various “platforms” by Sony Music. Furthermore, the total is up from about 135,000 at March’s end, according to the same source.

On one hand, identifying and attempting to decommission hundreds of thousands of unauthorized uploads is an involved undertaking. On the other hand, the sum represents a small portion of the 90,000 AI-generated tracks that Deezer found were hitting on-demand services daily as of July – a number that presumably went on to top 100,000.

Now, with the “Streaming Integrity Initiative” (SII) in full swing at the distributor level – and with Suno having embraced a clear-cut downloads limit under its Warner Music licensing agreement – time will tell whether the figure contracts.

(Additionally, Universal Music is suing DistroKid – which isn’t participating in the SII – for allegedly “flooding platforms with AI-generated slop,” and DSPs including Spotify have been looking to purge all manner of non-organic uploads and artist profiles.)

However, the continued user and generation-volume growth of authorized AI music platforms is also worth keeping in mind.

The well-funded ElevenLabs trained its core ElevenMusic models solely on authorized IP under deals with the likes of Merlin; a distinct Universal Music partnership, centering this time on a forthcoming walled-garden offering, materialized last month.

Similarly significant is the convoluted licensing landscape. In theory, enabling authorized soundalike releases would help to curb unapproved deepfakes. But at present, Warner Music is the only Suno-partnered major – and is therefore alone in creating upcoming artist-specific products with the controversial platform.

Judging by their expanded copyright infringement lawsuit against Suno, Universal Music and Sony Music could be far from adopting similar pacts. Moreover, Sony Music also has yet to join the other two majors in settling with Udio – placing the AI upstart in a curious position as it huddles together on the development of a licensed model while simultaneously fending off sweeping infringement claims.

That said, the majors are in agreement elsewhere: All three now possess stakes in Stability AI and are fully onboard with Klay Vision.

Upon announcing their tie-ups with the latter company in November 2025, the labels indicated that the platform would “launch in the coming months.” And with a National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA) licensing agreement having materialized for Klay this past June, the long-awaited debut, though currently without a hard date, may arrive in the not-so-distant future.