Entertainment

Universal and Sony Sue Suno Again Over New AI Model v6

Kiran MachadoPublished 8h ago2 min readBased on 5 sources
Universal and Sony Sue Suno Again Over New AI Model v6
Photo by Coolcaesar / CC BY 4.0

Universal Music Group and Sony Music filed a new copyright lawsuit against Suno on Friday, Sept. 18, aimed at the company's latest generator, v6. The case claims the system makes music from their recordings without permission. It was first detailed by Billboard.

The filing adds more than 61,000 songs to the dispute. An AI model is software trained on large amounts of existing material to create new tracks on request. Copyright infringement, the claim at the centre of the case, means using protected work without the owner's consent.

Universal and Sony allege that v6 was trained on outputs and user interactions from Suno's earlier models. They describe v6 in the filing as "the fruit of the same poisoned tree." The argument is that if the earlier systems were built on unlicensed music, the new one carries the same problem.

This is the second round of action against the start-up, which is led by chief executive Mikey Shulman. In June 2024, Sony Music, Universal Music Group and Warner Records sued Suno and a second AI company, Udio, alleging their products had been trained on copyrighted music, as reported by Reuters and The New York Times. The earlier case brought by Universal and Sony against Suno remains pending.

Warner has since taken a different path. It reached a settlement with Suno in November to license its catalogue, the body of recordings it controls, to the company. Suno then released v6 about a week before the new lawsuit in partnership with companies including Warner Music Group.

Suno has been lining up other industry deals in parallel. On 8 Sept. it announced a global strategic partnership with Believe and TuneCore, according to the company. Suno has also said that, moving forward, a paid account will be required to download songs from its product, as stated in its update on the Warner partnership.

What makes this stand out is the split among the three majors. Two are back in court over the new model. The third is licensing music to the same company and partnering on its launch.

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