AI music generator Suno is at the center of several legal battles, with artists accusing the company of copyright infringement and commercial exploitation. Country artist Tony Justice and his label, 5th Wheel Records, filed a proposed class action alleging Suno copied their recordings without permission to train its generative-music model. This lawsuit, along with similar actions, seeks to define whether AI systems must license music used for training or if such use constitutes "fair use." The case proceeds on claims that Suno's outputs infringe copyrights as unauthorized derivative works and that it circumvented YouTube's rolling cipher to obtain training data. Damages of up to $150,000 per infringed work are being sought.
Separately, major record labels including Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, and Warner Music International Services Limited, spearheaded by the RIAA, have also sued Suno (and Udio) for alleged widespread copyright infringement. These lawsuits claim that Suno unlawfully copied billions of sound recordings to train its AI models, enabling the generation of music that imitates and competes with original human-created content. The labels are seeking an injunction to prevent further training on copyrighted material and damages for past infringements. Suno CEO Mikey Shulman has stated that the company's technology is designed to generate new outputs and does not allow prompts referencing specific artists, emphasizing its focus on new music and originality.
In another class action lawsuit, six-time Grammy winner Jason Isbell, alongside David Lowery, Guy Forsyth, and Eduardo Calle, is suing Suno for the alleged commercial use of their identities. This lawsuit, filed in Boston federal court, does not include copyright claims but accuses Suno of building a product that responds to a musician's name by generating a song, written description, and cover image evoking that person. It also claims Suno captures and stores "voiceprints" without consent. The plaintiffs are seeking damages that exceed the $5 million threshold for federal court, a share of Suno's profits from these alleged activities, punitive damages, and a court order to prevent Suno from exploiting artists' voices, names, and identifying attributes without permission. Suno, which raised over $400 million in June 2026 at a $5.4 billion valuation and reportedly projects $1 billion in revenue by 2028, is accused of training on tens of millions of recordings and distilling the identities of millions of musicians.
