What is Suno? and why was it sued

Suno is an AI-powered music-generation platform: users type text prompts (mood, genre, lyrics ideas, etc.), and Suno generates a full song melody, lyrics, even a sung vocal. (BostonGlobe.com)

In June 2024, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) along with many major record labels including Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group (UMG), and Warner Music Group (WMG) filed a copyright-infringement lawsuit against Suno (and a similar company, Udio). (RIAA)

The core allegation: Suno trained its AI on “vast amounts” of copyrighted sound recordings from many different artists and labels without licensing or permission. According to the lawsuit, this allowed Suno to “ingest and exploit” those recordings at scale to build its AI models. (BostonGlobe.com)

Plaintiffs sought massive penalties up to US$150,000 per infringed work and an injunction to stop Suno’s unlicensed usage of recordings. (BostonGlobe.com)

Suno responded by saying that its training using publicly available music from the internet qualifies as “fair use.” CEO Mikey Shulman argued that the AI generates entirely new outputs rather than memorizing and replaying exact songs. (TechCrunch)

Additional lawsuits: Independent artists & global rights bodies

Beyond major labels, independent musicians also filed lawsuits against Suno. In June 2025, a class-action complaint alleged that Suno trained its model on “tens of millions” of publicly available songs many owned by independent artists without consent or compensation. The complaint claimed this was “unlawful,” and that once songs are ingested by an AI’s neural network, they cannot be reclaimed. (Music Business Worldwide)

Some of these lawsuits go further: plaintiffs argue that not only was training on copyrighted recordings illegal, but the music Suno generates may itself be infringing “derivative works” under copyright law. (Chat GPT Is Eating the World)

More recently, the legal fight expanded internationally: a Danish music-rights organization Koda filed a lawsuit against Suno in late 2025, claiming it had used songs from its repertoire including works by Danish artists to train its AI without permission. (CMU | the music business explained)

So overall, the allegations against Suno have come from both major labels and independent artists, as well as rights-management organizations abroad.

📰 Breakthrough: Settlement with Warner Music a new kind of deal

In a major development in November 2025, Suno and Warner Music Group announced they had settled their lawsuit. Rather than continuing litigation, the two parties formed a partnership under which Suno will launch “licensed AI music models”. (Reuters)

Key points of the settlement:

• Suno will roll out new models that are licensed meaning the use of catalog music from WMG artists in AI generation is now done with consent and presumably compensation. (TechCrunch)
• Artists/songwriters from WMG will have the option to opt in or out of allowing the use of their names, voices, likenesses, and compositions for AI-generated music. (Los Angeles Times)
• On the user side: Under the new rules, free-tier users will no longer be able to download songs created via Suno, only play or share them. Paid users will face download limits though they can pay extra to raise that limit. (Los Angeles Times)
• Also of note: as part of the agreement, WMG sold its concert-discovery platform Songkick to Suno. The idea seems to be for Suno to integrating live-music discovery with AI-generated music giving the AI platform a stronger foothold in the broader music ecosystem. (TechCrunch)

Some commentary calls this a “landmark pact,” suggesting it may shape how AI-music companies and record labels negotiate access, rights, and licensing going forward. (TechCrunch)

What this all means and what remains unresolved

The settlement between Suno and WMG is a big turning point. It illustrates a path forward where AI music-generation platforms can coexist with the traditional music industry but only under licensing agreements and with artist consent. That could set an industry standard rather than defaulting to adversarial lawsuits.

However. there remain several unresolved issues:

• Not all lawsuits are resolved. The suits by independent artists and by international rights-organizations (like Koda) are still ongoing. (CMU | the music business explained)
• Even under licensing, many questions stay unanswered: Who will get paid, and how much? Will smaller or independent artists get fair terms? Will AI-produced music be credited fairly (songwriter/performer royalties, performance rights, etc.)?
• For users: the new download restrictions and pay-to-download limits could reshape how hobbyists or independent creators use Suno, possibly limiting accessibility.

Overall the case of Suno shows how generative-AI tools are forcing legacy industries to rethink rights, compensation, and control. AI isn’t necessarily going away but if it’s going to flourish in music, it may have to do so under a framework that respects artists’ rights.