Kogon v. Google, LLC

The Plaintiffs are independent music creators based in Illinois, New York, Georgia, and California whose sound recordings, musical compositions, and lyrics are commercially distributed on major streaming platforms including Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, YouTube, and Pandora. The Plaintiffs allege that Google copied copyrighted musical works across multiple AI development projects spanning several years. In 2022, Google researchers documented gathering approximately 50 million internet music videos, extracting 30-second audio clips from each, and retaining roughly 44 million clips after filtering, representing nearly 370,000 hours of recorded music for its MuLan system. In 2023, Google's MusicLM paper described training on five million audio clips totalling 280,000 hours. The Complaint contends that neither research paper mentioned licences, consent mechanisms, or identification of rights holders whose permission was sought.

The Plaintiffs allege that Google was aware of legal risks associated with these practices before public release. The allegations in the Complaint include that when Google completed MusicLM in early 2023, Google initially withheld the model whilst acknowledging concerns about misappropriation of creative content, but released it four months later through its AI Test Kitchen. The Complaint further alleges that Google shelved another internal music tool called "Orca" due to copyright and legal concerns.

In November 2023, Google DeepMind announced Lyria, crediting four core researchers who subsequently left Google, formed Udio, and faced copyright litigation from the Recording Industry Association of America in June 2024. Udio settled with Universal Music Group in October 2025, agreeing, according to public reporting, to dismantle its existing system and rebuild using only licensed music. The Complaint alleges that Google launched Lyria 2 whilst the Udio lawsuit was pending.

On 18 February 2026, Google released Lyria 3 within the Gemini app. One week later, Google introduced ProducerAI, a standalone platform for creating full-length songs. The Complaint alleges that across MuLan, MusicLM, and the Lyria product line, Google never specified whose music was used for training, who consented, or who was compensated.

The Complaint further contends that Google's AI systems perform the same creative function as the artists whose work they are alleged to have consumed, operating in the same markets where those artists earn their livelihoods, at a scale no individual creator can match.

The Complaint pleads sixteen counts: direct, contributory and vicarious copyright infringement (17 U.S.C. section 501); DMCA violations (sections 1201 and 1202); Lanham Act false endorsement and false advertising; Illinois BIPA, Right of Publicity, UDTPA and ICFA violations; and unjust enrichment. The Plaintiffs seek injunctive relief, impoundment and destruction, statutory and actual damages, disgorgement, declaratory relief, and attorneys' fees.