Round Hill Music Sues Suno and Anthropic Over AI Training on Hundreds of Songs
Round Hill Music filed copyright lawsuits against AI companies Suno and Anthropic on Monday, August 17, alleging that the firms used hundreds of its songs without permission to train their AI models, with potential damages that could exceed $1 billion (Billboard).
The suits name more than 500 Round Hill-controlled songs, including 'Iris' by the Goo Goo Dolls, 'Total Eclipse of the Heart' by Bonnie Tyler, and 'I Got You (I Feel Good)' by James Brown. Round Hill, a music rights company that owns or administers catalogues spanning decades of pop, rock and soul, is represented by veteran music litigator Richard Busch.
Round Hill CEO Josh Gruss framed the filing as a matter of payment, not opposition to technology. He said the company is not against artificial intelligence but against building a business worth billions on top of other people's creative work without paying the creators. Gruss also stated that Round Hill intends to take both cases to trial and will not accept a resolution that leaves songwriters and artists deprived of their rightful share of compensation.
Neither Suno nor Anthropic immediately returned requests for comment.
The lawsuits land in an already crowded legal landscape for both companies. Suno has been sued by all three major music groups — Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment. Warner reached a settlement in November to license its catalogue to Suno, while UMG and Sony have continued litigating their 2024 lawsuit against the AI music firm. Record labels have separately accused Suno of stream-ripping music from YouTube to build its training data, seeking statutory damages of up to $150,000 per work infringed and up to $2,500 for each act of stream-ripping (Music Business Worldwide).
Anthropic, best known for its Claude AI assistant, faces its own copyright battles. US music publishers sued the company in 2023 over alleged infringement of lyrics from at least 500 songs, and Anthropic has claimed fair use as a defence in that case (Reuters). In a separate matter, a US federal judge approved Anthropic's $1.5 billion settlement of a class action copyright lawsuit brought by a group of authors on July 20, 2026 (Reuters).
Suno's legal troubles extend beyond the US. A German court ruled on July 31, 2026 that the AI music firm violated copyrights and must disclose illicit revenue (Reuters).
For songwriters and rights holders, the Round Hill suit adds another front in the push to make AI companies pay for the music they train on. The claimed damages — potentially over $1 billion across tens of thousands of songs — turn on statutory penalties, the per-work fines that US copyright law allows courts to impose, which can reach $150,000 for each infringed composition.
