Sony and Universal sue Suno for $9 billion over AI music training

Sony Music Entertainment and Universal Music Group have filed a new lawsuit against Suno, a generative AI music platform, seeking up to $9 billion in damages. The labels allege that Suno’s technology utilizes copyrighted recordings without authorization to train its musical models.

A central component of the legal action involves the concept of ‘model laundering.’ The plaintiffs argue that Suno’s newer models, such as version v6, were trained using outputs from previous versions of its own system. These earlier versions were allegedly fed unlicensed music extracted from sources like YouTube. The labels contend that training a new model on the outputs of an infringing model does not erase the original copyright violation but merely obscures it.

Unlike other industry players that have reached licensing agreements with AI platforms, Sony and Universal have maintained a litigious stance. The case represents a major legal battleground regarding whether AI training constitutes fair use or unauthorized exploitation of commercial catalogs.