Stability AI, the company behind the image generator Stable Diffusion, has raised 76 million dollars (around 70 million euros) in a Series B round. That brings total funding since its founding in 2019 to 232 million dollars. The sum is not a record for this industry - this year we have seen billion-dollar rounds. What is interesting is who put up the money.

The list of investors includes Universal Music Group, Sony Music Group, Warner Music Group and gaming giant Electronic Arts, plus two investment firms, AMD Ventures and Pacific Alliance Ventures. That is not a typical venture line-up. Those are precisely the companies Stability depends on for licensing content and for distribution. When your potential litigants come in as your owners, the copyright agreement gets settled in the boardroom rather than the courtroom.

Chief executive Prem Akkaraju, who joined the company in 2024, called the round "a validation of our vision where generative artificial intelligence empowers every producer, musician and storyteller". A formulation that sounds fine until you ask who exactly it empowers - the musician, or the three largest labels now sitting in the ownership structure.

The company says the money will go into its "creative production" product line and into expanding its services. Over the past year Stability signed deals with Universal Music and EA in October, and with Warner Music in November - and in all three the company does not only license, it also takes part in developing the tools. That is the crucial difference: the industry is not buying a product, it is buying influence over what the product will look like.

In court, Stability has come off better than expected. In the United Kingdom it largely won the case brought by Getty Images, which claimed the company had used its photographs to train the model. The judge ruled predominantly in its favour. A similar suit in the US is still running. And in 2023 the company was sued by its own co-founder Cyrus Hodes, who claims the other co-founder Emad Mostaque tricked him into selling his stake.

The conclusion that suggests itself is not about this company but about the whole industry: a model that began as an open tool available to anyone is now financed by the same labels that have spent decades controlling how and to whom music gets paid. Will the tool stay available to everyone - or become one more counter with a queue in front of it?