SOUNDPATROL COLLABORATES WITH UNIVERSAL MUSIC GROUP AND SONY MUSIC TO DEPLOY GROUNDBREAKING NEURAL FINGERPRINTING TECHNOLOGIES FOR DETECTING COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT IN MUSIC, INCLUDING AI-GENERATED WORKS
SOUNDPATROL COLLABORATES WITH UNIVERSAL MUSIC GROUP AND SONY MUSIC TO DEPLOY GROUNDBREAKING NEURAL FINGERPRINTING TECHNOLOGIES FOR DETECTING COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT IN MUSIC, INCLUDING AI-GENERATED WORKS
Major Music Labels Go Neural to Protect Artists’ Rights
Research Lab Founded by Media Executive Michael Ovitz and Dr. Walter De Brouwer of Stanford University Answers Long-Standing Problem of IP Theft
Santa Monica, Calif., September 25, 2025 – SoundPatrol Inc., a research lab for large music models, announces a first-of-a-kind collaboration with Universal Music Group (“UMG”) and Sony Music to protect artists from the unchecked copyright infringement activity coming from AI music generators.
This groundbreaking development is made possible through SoundPatrol’s patent-pending “forensic AI model for audio-video fingerprinting”, which employs neural embeddings that capture and analyze musical semantics in order to identify the influence of original human-created music in fully or partly AI-generated music content.
The technology represents a step change in copyright detection and responsible music creation and is tailored specifically to capture the evolving complexities of the music landscape.
Sir Lucian Grainge, UMG’s Chairman and CEO, said: “We’re constantly focused on enabling AI—bringing to market the many commercial and creative opportunities that will benefit our artists while establishing effective tools to protect them. Bringing solutions to the table that support the entire industry is at the heart of our relationship with SoundPatrol, who share our commitment to safeguarding our artists’ creative integrity and work.”
Dennis Kooker, President, Global Digital Business, Sony Music, said: “The possibilities of AI present opportunities for artists and creators when used the right way. We’re committed to navigating this developing landscape by protecting their work while also exploring the innovative potential of these technologies. Our collaboration with SoundPatrol is about respecting artists’ rights to build a sustainable and equitable ecosystem for everyone.”
Neural Fingerprinting is a significant advancement beyond traditional audio fingerprinting techniques, which primarily rely on matching exact audio snippets. Neural embeddings capture semantic relationships to identify covers, remixes and generative-AI derivatives.
SoundPatrol will also develop powerful tools and models designed to proactively help third-party platforms and research labs prevent copyright violations, ensuring a creatively vibrant digital music ecosystem that fairly compensates artists for their original works.
The lab originated at Stanford University with a constellation of leading AI, machine learning, and cybersecurity academics, including Walter De Brouwer Ph. D., SoundPatrol’s co-founder and CEO, and colleagues Percy Liang Ph. D. (director of the Center for Foundation Models and leading Marin at Stanford, the Open Lab for Building Foundation Models), Chris Re, Ph. D. (Stanford AI Lab, Director of FactoryHQ), and Dan Boneh, Ph. D. (Director of the Applied Cryptography Lab and Co Director of the Cybersecurity Lab).
Walter De Brouwer, SoundPatrol Co-Founder and CEO, said: “Generative AI is transforming music in extraordinary ways, but if we abandon copyright, we risk severing artists from ownership of their own work. It is compulsory to proactively feed deep embeddings of these neural signatures into streaming infrastructures so that owners can maintain control, authenticity, and monetization of their intellectual property in the generative AI era. Eliminating copyright to accelerate AI is like changing the speed of light to advance physics—it misunderstands the fundamental laws that sustain creativity.”
Michael Ovitz, SoundPatrol Co-Founder and Chairman of the Board, said: “This is a huge victory for all artists in the creative universe.” He continued: “One of the premier issues affecting artists has always been the protection of their intellectual property rights. SoundPatrol has answered the long-standing problem of IP theft by creating a frontier lab with neural fingerprinting capabilities that can identify all pipelines of directly transmitted content, whether on its own or intermixed, in real time. This is the first of-its-kind technology implemented to protect all copyright holders and creators of any type of intellectual property.”
The lab has assembled a distinguished team, with each member uniquely qualified in computer engineering, artificial intelligence, and musicology. Heading the research is John Thickstun, Ph. D., Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Cornell University. Supporting him are graduate students and Ph. D. graduate students from Stanford University’s renowned CCRMA and London’s C4DM, the UK’s leading digital music research group at Queen Mary University. Experienced engineers specializing in AI and distributed systems from Carnegie Mellon, Brown, and UC Berkeley round out the technical team. Industry veterans Aber Whitcomb, legendary CTO of MySpace and Jam City, and Frederick Kautz, former Chair of KubeCon and CloudNativeCon, are coordinating red and blue teams to strengthen security and innovation.
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About SoundPatrol Inc.
SoundPatrol is a research lab co-founded by Michael Ovitz and Stanford Adjunct professor Walter De Brouwer Ph.D. (CERC). The lab works on large music models, novel formats for neural, embedded music and neural fingerprinting. Where audio hashes excel at fast lookups of known recordings, neural embeddings capture semantic relationships—identifying covers, remixes and generative-AI derivatives—while continuously learning from new releases. Neural fingerprinting moves beyond fixed perceptual hashes to a dynamic, context-aware model that adapts to evolving infringement tactics and distinguishes human from machine creations.
