Suno Asks Judge to Dismiss Jason Isbell's AI Identity Lawsuit

Suno, the AI music company, has asked a judge to throw out a lawsuit by Jason Isbell and other artists who say the platform lets people copy their identities. In a response filed on 3 November, Suno argued the case should be dismissed right away.

Isbell sued Suno in August. He accuses the company of letting users summon a musician's identity by typing the musician's name into the prompt box. According to the lawsuit, the platform then produces a song, a written description and a cover image that trade on that name. Billboard reported that the case was filed as a class action, a lawsuit brought on behalf of a larger group. In this case, that group could include millions of other artists. Professor David Lowery is also a plaintiff, and the case was filed in federal court in Massachusetts.

The lawsuit is different from many AI cases so far. Earlier suits focused on copyrighted songs that companies used to train their models. This one centres on likeness rights, the legal right to control how your name, image and identity are used. The complaint says Suno violates state laws protecting these rights in New York, California, Tennessee and elsewhere.

Suno's answer is that it does not let users prompt its model with specific artist names. Instead, the company says, it turns those requests into descriptions of the sound. Suno gave one example: a "Duran Duran" request might be redirected into "New wave, Synth-pop, Pop rock." The company argues there is "nothing unlawful" about using an artist's name to describe music, or about trying to capture an artist's "vibe." It also says the First Amendment, the part of the US Constitution that protects free speech, covers using artists' names as shorthand for a genre.

The plaintiffs say those safeguards can be sidestepped. Their lawsuit claims that spaced-out names such as "t a y l o r s w i f t" for Taylor Swift and "b a d b u n n y" for Bad Bunny still get through. Those are allegations, and the judge has not ruled on them.

Suno is also facing separate lawsuits from major music companies. Those cases allege copyright infringement, claiming the company took in millions of songs to train its models. Those claims concern the recordings and songs themselves, not the names of the people who made them.

For the artists in the Isbell case, the question is how much control a name carries once a machine can respond to it. A singer's name is tied to their work, their income and their reputation. The judge will now decide whether these claims can go forward. No date for a ruling has been announced.