The New Lawsuit: Major Labels Take Aim at Suno
On June 24, 2024, eight of the world’s biggest music companies—UMG Recordings, Capitol Records, Sony Music Entertainment, Atlantic Recording Corporation, and others—filed a federal lawsuit against Suno, Inc. (Case 1:24-cv-11611, U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts). Their claim: Suno’s AI “copied decades worth of the world’s most popular sound recordings and then ingested those copies into Suno’s AI model so it can generate outputs that imitate the qualities of genuine human sound recordings”.
The suit seeks to enforce what the plaintiffs call “foundational principles of copyright law”—specifically, that copying protected sound recordings for the purpose of developing an AI product requires permission from rightsholders. The complaint is clear: “There is nothing that exempts AI technology from copyright law or that excuses AI companies from playing by the rules”.
Key Legal Allegations
The labels allege Suno has knowingly infringed their exclusive rights in copyrighted sound recordings by reproducing and using them to train its generative AI model, without any license or permission. The complaint repeatedly cites the Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. §§ 101, et seq., and the Music Modernization Act, 17 U.S.C. § 1401. Plaintiffs are seeking not just damages, but a court-ordered injunction to halt Suno’s current practices, plus up to $150,000 per work infringed—a staggering potential liability.
Among the most damning evidence: When directly challenged, Suno allegedly did not deny copying the plaintiffs’ works, instead insisting their training data was “confidential business information” and offering a “fair use” defense—a defense that only arises if there has been unauthorized use in the first place.
