Judge transfers indie musicians' biometric-voiceprint suit against Udio to New York

What happened

On 3 August 2026, U.S. District Judge Sara L. Ellis (N.D. Ill.) denied without prejudice Udio's motion to dismiss and instead granted the company's alternative request to transfer the case to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York under 28 U.S.C. § 1404(a), via a three-sentence minute entry (Bloomberg Law, reporting 4 August 2026). The case now proceeds in the S.D.N.Y. (1:26-cv-07968, reassigned to Judge Loretta A. Preska).

The underlying suit is Woulard v. Uncharted Labs, Inc. d/b/a Udio.com (N.D. Ill. 1:25-cv-12613), a proposed class action filed 15 October 2025 by indie musicians David Woulard, Attack the Sound LLC, Stan Burjek, James Burjek, Berk Ergoz, Hamza Jilani, Maatkara Wilson, Arjun Singh, Magnus Fiennes, and Michael Mell. The 100-page complaint (Document 1, read in full) alleges: "Udio collected, stored, and exploited biometric identifiers and voiceprints derived from human performances without adhering to the legal safeguards required by the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA), thereby violating the Act." It departs from the standard copyright-framed training-data suits by centering BIPA voiceprint claims over AI-generated music that floods the market. A First Amended Complaint (14 counts) was filed 7 January 2026; only the original complaint PDF was retrievable. These are allegations; no ruling has issued on the merits.

Why it may matter to you

This is the first BIPA voiceprint case against a generative-music company to move toward substantive proceedings in a new venue. Illinois BIPA carries $5,000-per-violation exposure, and the complaint frames Udio's voiceprint collection as a standalone biometric violation rather than a fair-use copyright question.

What is not yet known

Whether the S.D.N.Y. court reaches the BIPA claims on the merits; the contents of the amended complaint.