Udio Opens 48-Hour Download Window After UMG Deal Backlash

Amid a fierce backlash to a licensing settlement with Universal Music Group, Udio will open a 48-hour window starting Monday Nov. 3 for subscribers to download existing songs they created on the platform.

The move follows a deal announced Wednesday Oct. 29 that will end UMG’s allegations that Udio broke the law by training its models on vast troves of copyrighted songs; under that agreement, the firm will pay a compensatory settlement and partner on a new subscription service that pays fees to UMG and allows artists to opt in to different aspects of the service; immediately after the announcement, the company disabled all downloading and described a coming product that functions as a walled garden where creations can be streamed but not taken elsewhere, with launch planned next year.

On the company’s Reddit community, outrage mounted against Udio as paying users complained that they had not been warned about losing access to their own music and described the change as sudden and sweeping; quotes captured the mood, including “This feels like an absolute betrayal” and “I’ve spent hundreds of $$$ and countless hours building tracks with this tool,” and some commenters escalated to legal threats such as “What you have committed is fraud” with promises to pursue remedies.

Responding late Thursday Oct. 30, Udio CEO Andrew Sanchez posted on Reddit that the company will provide a 48-hour download window beginning Monday and that any songs downloaded during that period will be governed by the prior terms of service, writing, “Not going to mince words: we hate the fact we cannot offer downloads right now” and “We know the pain it causes to you, and we are sorry that we have had to do so.”

In the same post, Sanchez said Udio is a small company operating in an incredibly complex and evolving space that has chosen to partner directly with artists and songwriters, adding, “In order to facilitate that partnership, we had to disable downloads”; when asked how the platform could restore downloads if the restriction flowed from the legal settlement, he wrote that the team had “worked with our partners to help make this possible,” and Universal Music Group did not respond to a request for comment.

Any existing songs downloaded next week will be owned by the users who made them; under Udio’s terms of service, the platform grants ownership rights and express permission to use songs for commercial purposes, and those on the free tier must include an attribution that the work was created with its tool.

Udio said it will provide the exact starting time and end time on Friday Oct. 31, though by Friday afternoon those specifics had not yet been posted; a company spokesperson offered no additional details, leaving creators to plan for a narrow window that illustrates how quickly rules can shift in a young market built on fast-moving models and unsettled law; for many creators, the episode crystallizes a trade-off between portability and the walled garden model that rights holders prefer.

As generative media services seek legitimacy through licensing, investors and platforms are converging on controlled distribution, revenue-sharing and consent frameworks designed to limit legal exposure while keeping creators engaged, and Udio’s compromise points to a near-term path where de-risked subscriptions attract capital and enterprise demand for compliant tools grows; the broader signal is that next-generation corporate content will likely reside inside fenced ecosystems where ownership and portability are spelled out in contracts rather than assumed by default.