Major record labels escalate legal war against AI music generator Suno with a second massive copyright infringement lawsuit

The landscape of generative artificial intelligence in the music industry has entered a new phase of litigation as a coalition of major record labels, led by UMG Recordings and Sony Music Entertainment, filed a secondary lawsuit against the AI music startup Suno on Friday. This new complaint, lodged in the District of Massachusetts, targets the unauthorized use of 60,202 copyrighted sound recordings, marking a significant escalation in a conflict that has already redefined the boundaries between technological innovation and intellectual property rights.

This filing follows a protracted legal battle that began in June 2024. The labels initially attempted to fold these additional tens of thousands of works into the ongoing primary case. However, in an August ruling, the court denied that motion, citing the potential for procedural disruption to the existing case schedule. Crucially, the court did not dismiss the merits of the labels’ claims, explicitly stating that the plaintiffs were entitled to pursue these grievances. The judge suggested that filing a parallel case would be the most effective way to balance the labels’ interests with the principles of judicial economy—a suggestion the music giants have now formally acted upon.

The Scope of the Allegations

The new complaint, filed as case 1:26-cv-14275, represents an expansive look at Suno’s training methodology. The labels contend that Suno has systematically built its generative models by ingesting millions of copyrighted recordings without authorization or compensation. Forensic analysis commissioned by the labels revealed that the 60,202 specific works identified in this filing are merely a fraction of the total library allegedly used to train Suno’s AI.

The labels’ case is bolstered by Suno’s own admissions in the original 2024 litigation. In its response to the first suit, Suno acknowledged that its models were developed by exposing the program to "tens of millions of instances of different kinds of recordings." While Suno has stopped short of providing a granular list of the specific tracks within its training corpus, the labels argue that the forensic evidence confirms their proprietary content is embedded within the AI’s underlying architecture.

The Emergence of a Licensing Market

A central pillar of the labels’ argument is the existence of a viable licensing market for AI training data. The complaint highlights three major deals signed by Suno over the past year: Warner Music Group in November 2025, BMG in August 2026, and Believe in September 2026. These agreements, the labels argue, serve as objective evidence that generative AI companies are capable of securing legal access to training material.

Suno’s leadership has previously sought to distance these agreements from the issue of training data. Chief Product Officer Jack Brody has characterized these deals as revenue-sharing arrangements that are not fundamentally tied to the use of data for training. However, the labels view this as a distinction without a difference, noting that Suno’s co-founder and CEO, Mikey Shulman, has publicly stated that the company "will be licensing works." The labels assert that these deals represent a "functioning licensing market, whatever nomenclature Suno adopts for litigation purposes."

Contradictions in Terms of Service

The lawsuit further scrutinizes the hypocrisy of Suno’s operational model by pointing to its own Terms of Service. Since January 2024, Suno has required all users to grant the company a "worldwide, non-exclusive, fully paid-up, sublicensable" and "irrevocable" license over any content they upload to the platform.

The labels argue that by demanding these broad rights from its users to protect itself, Suno demonstrates a clear, sophisticated understanding of copyright law and the necessity of licensing. By enforcing these requirements upstream while simultaneously ingesting commercial music for free, the labels argue that Suno’s infringement is not merely accidental but "knowing and willful." Under U.S. copyright law, a finding of willful infringement can lead to significantly higher statutory damages, reaching up to $150,000 per work.

Technical Allegations and Circumvention

Beyond the unauthorized use of recordings, the complaint introduces a separate charge of circumvention under Section 1201(a) of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). The labels allege that Suno utilized "stream-ripping" technologies to bypass the technical protection measures employed by platforms like YouTube. By extracting, copying, and downloading audio files in violation of these platforms’ terms of service, the labels claim Suno engaged in a deliberate effort to circumvent copyright protections to feed its model.

The potential financial exposure for Suno is staggering. With the statutory ceiling set at $150,000 per work for willful infringement and additional penalties for circumvention, the total potential liability for the 60,202 recordings exceeds $9 billion. While such figures are often adjusted during litigation or settlements, the magnitude of the demand signals the labels’ intent to set a definitive legal precedent regarding the economic value of recorded music in the age of AI.

Broader Industry Implications and Market Harm

The litigation arrives at a time of profound anxiety within the creative industries regarding the market saturation of AI-generated content. Data from Deezer, cited in the complaint, indicates that AI-generated tracks have surged to represent over 50% of daily uploads on some platforms, a sharp increase from previous periods.

The labels argue that this influx of synthetic music, which mimics the styles and sounds of human artists, causes direct, irreparable harm to the market for authentic recordings. The complaint references "The Velvet Sundown," an AI-generated act that garnered over a million monthly listeners on Spotify before the public became aware that the music was machine-generated. This, the labels contend, proves that AI is not just a tool for creation, but a direct competitor designed to displace the very artists whose work was used to train it.

Chronology of the Conflict

• July 2023: Suno is founded by former employees of Kensho Technologies in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
• January 2024: Suno updates its Terms of Service to include mandatory licensing from its users.
• June 2024: UMG and Sony file the initial copyright infringement lawsuit against Suno.
• August 2025: Suno’s valuation climbs to $5.4 billion following a major funding round.
• August 2026: The court denies the labels’ motion to amend the original complaint, encouraging a parallel filing.
• September 2026: Suno launches "v6" utilizing licensed catalogues, while the labels file a second, separate lawsuit covering over 60,000 additional works.

The Road Ahead

Suno has not yet filed a formal response to the new complaint, but the company’s history of public commentary suggests it will maintain its position that its models are transformative and do not violate copyright law. In the past, CEO Mikey Shulman has criticized the reliance on litigation, suggesting that venture capital funds would be better spent on collaborative discussions. However, the labels have shown little appetite for reconciliation, clearly preferring the judicial route to establish a framework that mandates licensing.

This case is part of a broader, global front in the battle over AI. Similar to the recent action taken by Sony against Udio—a direct competitor to Suno—the industry is signaling that it will not tolerate the "move fast and break things" mentality when it involves the unauthorized exploitation of musical catalogs. Furthermore, international rulings, such as a recent decision in Germany where a court found Suno in violation of copyright law in a case brought by GEMA, suggest that the legal environment is increasingly hostile to the company’s current training practices.

As the case moves forward, the outcome will likely hinge on the interpretation of "fair use" as applied to the massive ingestion of protected works for model training. The labels are betting that the sheer volume of data, the commercial success of the resulting AI, and the existence of a viable licensing market will persuade the courts that Suno’s operations are not protected under current exemptions. For the music industry, this represents a battle for the very soul of creative compensation in the 21st century.