Universal Music Group, one of the largest music distributors in the market, told Spotify and Apple to block artificial intelligence services from scraping its catalogs for data, a legal intervention that could have major ramifications for AI software.

UMG told music streaming services in March to limit AI scraping efforts, according to emails reviewed by the Financial Times. AI-generated songs have grown increasingly common in recent months, including ones based on UMG artists such as Taylor Swift or Elton John. Several of these songs' creators have been targeted by takedown requests filed by UMG and its fellow music distributors. Now, the company has asked for the bots to be permanently banned.

"We will not hesitate to take steps to protect our rights and those of our artists," the music distributor wrote.

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If Spotify or Apple were to abide by the requests, it could limit projects such as Google's MusicLM, which generates music based on a text description. The bot required training on over 280,000 hours of audio, according to a research paper. MusicLM was not released because researchers discovered the risk of "potential misappropriation of creative content," including direct recreations of existing musical properties.

"We have a moral and commercial responsibility to our artists to work to prevent the unauthorized use of their music and to stop platforms from ingesting content that violates the rights of artists and other creators. We expect our platform partners will want to prevent their services from being used in ways that harm artists," a UMG spokesperson said.

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Spotify and Apple have not commented on whether they intend to abide by UMG's request.

AI-based tools have grown more common in recent weeks with the release of Google's Bard and open AI's GPT-4. Generative AI creators have also become popular, including bots that can create visual art with a simple text prompt. The Commerce Department's National Telecommunications and Information Administration requested public comment on Tuesday on how it should regulate or manage AI software in the future.