A wave of panic is sweeping through the indie music scene, driven by lawsuits and social media personalities claiming to defend artists from the supposed dangers of artificial intelligence. The most recent flashpoint comes in the form of a YouTube video titled “Exposing Suno, Udio & Timbaland: NEW Indie Class Action Lawsuits Explained.” It’s making the rounds in AI music communities, stirring fears about how platforms like Suno handle original content uploaded by users.

In the video, attorney and content creator Krystle Tika Carr outlines how musicians who upload music to AI platforms might be unknowingly contributing their work to a neural network that cannot be “un-trained,” thereby allowing elements of their creations to appear in other users’ music. The video calls for plaintiffs to join lawsuits, painting a picture of artistic theft by opaque, unethical machines.

But let’s take a step back and actually look at what’s being said—and what’s at stake.

Neural Networks Aren’t Copy Machines

The idea that uploading music to a platform like Suno somehow instantly injects your work into everyone else’s songs is a profound misunderstanding of how machine learning works. Neural networks, particularly in generative AI, learn patterns—not individual tracks. They don’t store MP3s and hand them back to other users. They abstract relationships, styles, cadences, and textures.

Artists should stop kneejerking their attitude toward re-use, sampling, lifting, plunderphonics, etc. Copyright hasn’t kept up with art and is hold artists back. I started FREEARTISTS.ORG to spin the narrative back another way. As a founder of Tapegerm Collective in 1999, I immersed in a pool of free, creative re-use and it’s a beautiful thing. Your music can further live and evolve in wonderful ways if you let it. Sounds I let loose 20+ years ago continue creeping into a zeitgeist of art today.

Claiming that a neural network “can’t forget” is like saying a human musician can’t forget the Beatles after listening to them. Influence is not theft. It’s how art evolves.

Fearmongering as a Business Model

There’s something else at play here: clickbait. These creators are building platforms, not just arguments. Outrage equals engagement, which in turn equals followers and, eventually, new clients. Legal professionals like Krystle Carr are savvy marketers. Every video serves as a funnel to attract artists who are afraid, confused, and looking for protection—sometimes from threats that are more perceived than real.

Let’s be clear: there are ethical questions about training on copyrighted material without permission. But those questions belong at the level of large-scale, industrial scraping—not user opt-in platforms like Suno, where artists willingly upload and often encourage remixing or collaborative generation.

Free Art Requires Risk

As I commented on the original thread, “She and other artists who re-spin this narrative are wrongheaded about the whole idea of neural networks. She benefits from all the clickbait and new clients at minimal acquisition costs. The artists that buy into it are useful idiots. But she’s standing in the way of free art. She and others like her are a bane to art.”

Yes, that’s blunt. But someone has to say it: If we want to live in a world where art flows freely—where anyone can make, remix, reimagine—we need to stop treating every AI innovation as an existential threat. AI opens the door to millions of new creators. Like the internet before it, it disrupts gatekeepers. That should be celebrated.

The Middle Path

Tika Carr responded thoughtfully, saying, “I love AI. It opens doors, just like the internet did. And like the internet, there needs to be some rules we all can agree on so we can enjoy it safely.” That’s fair. But the path forward isn’t lawsuits and fear-based recruitment. It’s education, nuance, and transparency.

If you upload to Suno or Udio, read the terms. Know the platform. Decide if it aligns with your values. But don’t let fearmongering dictate your artistic future.

As artists, we have always borrowed, reshaped, and built upon each other’s ideas. AI doesn’t change that—it just speeds it up. Let’s not confuse acceleration with apocalypse.

For 40 years, GAJOOB has stood for independent creators and evolving technologies that empower them.