Suno Asks Court to Make Apple Testify on Label Catalogues
Suno wants Apple to answer questions under oath about whether Apple Music could survive without the catalogues of Universal Music Group (UMG) and Sony Music. The AI music company made the request in a filing dated 27 October, opposing Apple's attempt to block a deposition subpoena. Music Business Worldwide
Apple is not a party to the case. On 13 October, it asked a federal court in California to block Suno's demand. Apple argued that the deposition topics are “irrelevant, overbroad, and disproportionate to the needs of the case.”
A deposition is a formal session where a witness answers lawyers' questions under oath, and the answers can be used in court. Suno wants an Apple witness to discuss the company's current licensing talks with UMG and Sony. It also wants testimony on streaming fraud on Apple Music, meaning artificially inflated plays, and on what the labels have told Apple about Suno.
The request sits inside a wider dispute. UMG and Sony are suing Suno in federal court in Massachusetts. They accuse the company of training its AI system on their recordings without permission. The first suit was filed in June 2024 and covers 560 recordings. The labels seek up to $150,000 per work infringed, a theoretical maximum of around $84 million in that case. They also seek up to $2,500 for each alleged act of getting around YouTube's anti-downloading technology.
In September, the labels filed a second suit covering 60,202 more recordings. At the same per-work ceiling, the theoretical maximum in that case is just over $9 billion. The theoretical maximum is the highest amount the law allows, not an amount either side has been awarded. Warner Music Group was a co-plaintiff in the original case and settled with Suno in November 2025.
Apple Music is central to the labels' argument. Their complaint names Apple Music as a destination for Suno outputs. The labels allege that music made by Suno users is flooding streaming services, cutting into their market share and diluting royalty pools. A royalty pool is the shared amount of streaming money divided among rights holders.
For listeners, the case is about where AI-made tracks end up and who gets paid when they do. For the streaming companies, it puts their deals with the labels and their fight against fake streams under a legal spotlight. Suno's filing asks the court to let it question Apple directly on both.
