ElevenLabs Releases Music V2.5 Following UMG Licensing Deal

ElevenLabs launched Music v2.5 – shortly after announcing its UMG licensing deal.

September 15, 2026 By Mandy Dalugdug

ElevenLabs has released Music v2.5 , the new model behind its ElevenMusic song-generation platform.

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The model went live on Friday ( September 11 ) and is now the default “for prompted and reference generation” in ElevenMusic , the company said in a blog post.

It landed a day after ElevenLabs announced a multi-year licensing agreement with Universal Music Group – a deal the company says is separate from the new model.

“The instruments sound real,” ElevenLabs said of Music v2.5 , which it calls its best music model yet. “Songs have more layers, more movement, and they hold together all the way through.”

The company ran a blind test in which the same prompt produced one take from each model, across 47,885 pairs.

Music v2.5 was the preferred take the majority of the time, according to ElevenLabs , which told MBW that users downloaded v2.5 tracks more often than v2 ’s.

The gap is widest on “vocal-led and acoustic-heavy genres,” the company said, listing R&B , soul, hip-hop, rock, metal, orchestral, and cinematic music.

Music v2 , released on May 26 , stays live alongside v2.5 and “isn’t going anywhere,” ElevenLabs said.

That sets it apart from Suno , which launched v6 two days earlier, on Wednesday ( September 9 ), and retired its previous models the same day.

On ownership, the ElevenLabs post tells users: “You own what you make in ElevenMusic, on every plan, including Free.”

The ElevenMusic site’s version of the post, bylined Imogen Mulliner and published that day, says instead: “You have rights to what you make in ElevenMusic.”

ElevenLabs used the stronger verb in an email to MBW , saying: “Users own what they make, on every plan, including our free plan.”

> “Users own what they make, on every plan, including our free plan.” ElevenLabs

Both published versions give the same download allowance: five lossless a day on Free , and 400 a month on Pro .

The ElevenLabs version adds that Free users can use what they make commercially as long as they credit ElevenMusic .

The ElevenMusic version carries no such promise. In its place, an italicized footnote beneath the ownership section reads: “Rights and commercial use vary by subscription tier,” linking out to the platform’s terms.

The email ElevenLabs sent MBW carries neither the credit condition nor the tier caveat, saying a songwriter can “download the track and use it commercially on any plan including free.”

Whatever a user gets attaches at the moment of creation and survives a plan being canceled or downgraded, both versions say – the ElevenLabs post calling it permissions, the ElevenMusic post rights.

“The songs you already made are yours to keep,” the ElevenLabs version adds, saying any future change to its terms would apply only to tracks made from the date of the change.

ElevenLabs blocks downloads on tracks that “reference other artists’ songs,” a line both versions carry.

ElevenLabs ’ music terms already bar users from prompting with an artist or songwriter’s name, a song or album title, a label or publisher’s name, or recognizable lyrics, as MBW reported in August 2025 .

The UMG agreement, announced on Thursday ( September 10 ), begins with a separate AI music platform for fans that ElevenLabs will build on licensed music and artist participation. The two companies will also jointly develop AI audio products for artists and songwriters.

That platform will be “distinct and offered separately from” ElevenLabs ’ existing music products, the two companies said in announcing the deal, naming the Music API and ElevenMusic among them.

The agreement is ElevenLabs ’ first with a major label, according to the two firms.

“That agreement is separate from Music v2.5, and no UMG artist music was used to train this model,” ElevenLabs told MBW .

Neither published version of the post carries that second clause. The ElevenLabs post says only that the deal “is separate from Music 2.5,” and the ElevenMusic post that the agreement “is separate from Music v2.5.”

Suno Chief Product Officer Jack Brody gave a similar assurance on September 9 , saying the data used to train v6 “doesn’t include data from” UMG or Sony Music Entertainment .

The distance between marketing copy and terms is not unique to ElevenLabs either. Brody told MBW that “if you’re a paying subscriber, you own the music that you generate on the platform.”

Suno ’s terms of service, in effect since September 3 , state that the company “makes no representation or warranty to you that any copyright will vest in any Output.”

ElevenLabs holds music licensing agreements with Merlin , publisher Kobalt , and Believe , and was valued at USD $11 billion in a $500 million Series D round announced in February.

While UMG partners with ElevenLabs , it remains a plaintiff against rival Suno in the RIAA -coordinated copyright case filed in Boston in June 2024, alongside Sony Music Entertainment . Warner Music Group was a plaintiff too and settled in November 2025 .

Music v2.5 is live in ElevenCreative , the company’s platform for marketers and media companies, and through its Music API .

It follows Muse , a conversational co-writer for ElevenMusic introduced on August 27 , and Composer, a section-by-section song editor announced two days before that.

Both sit in a run of ElevenMusic releases going back to the standalone iOS app, which went live on April 1 .

ElevenLabs said in April that more than 4,000 independent and emerging artists were using the platform.

It does not disclose subscriber numbers for ElevenMusic . Music Business Worldwide

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_Originally reported by [Music Business Worldwide](https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/elevenlabs-launched-music-v2-5-shortly-after-announcing-its-umg-licensing-deal/)._