Sony Music Entertainment and Universal Music Group (UMG) have filed a new lawsuit alleging that Suno’s recently launched v6 AI music models continue to infringe on their copyrights. The legal action challenges the narrative Suno has presented regarding its latest technology, which was developed following licensing agreements with Warner Music Group and BMG.
According to the complaint, obtained by Music Business Worldwide, the record labels argue that Suno circumvented copyright protections by training its v6 models on “users’ interactions” with its service. Sony and UMG interpret this to mean the models rely on outputs and preference signals derived from earlier iterations built on unlicensed recordings. The lawsuit asserts this chain of training data constitutes indirect infringement, potentially exposing Suno to liability for violations involving at least 60,202 sound recordings.
If the claims hold, Suno could face damages up to $9 billion under US copyright law. Additionally, the labels seek up to $2,500 for each instance where Suno allegedly bypassed YouTube’s anti-downloading measures to scrape songs, as reported by Music Business Worldwide.
Suno rejected the allegations, stating that the claims are “fundamentally flawed on both the facts and the law.” In a statement to Engadget, the company reaffirmed its mission to enable more people to create music. It highlighted that the v6 lineup was launched in partnership with WMG, BMG, and Believe, and was trained on licensed content, community creations, preference signals, and internal team learnings. “We are excited for a future where AI and the music industry continue to strengthen one another,” the company said.
This suit builds upon previous litigation by Sony, UMG, and Warner Music Group, as well as a July 2026 hack that revealed Suno had scraped millions of tracks from YouTube Music, Deezer, and Genius. While Suno has historically defended such scraping under fair use doctrine, it discontinued support for its older models alongside the v6 release—an apparent move to distance itself from earlier training methods. However, if judges accept the labels’ interpretation of how the new models were constructed, that distinction may not shield the company from liability.
Scraping YouTube despite anti-download measures sounds shady. Fair use might not protect intentional circumvention of security tools.
I hope this doesn’t kill AI music entirely. There is a huge difference between copying songs and using algorithms to create something new.
It is interesting that Suno partnered with Warner and BMG while being sued by Sony and UMG. The industry is clearly fragmented on this issue.
Suno claims v6 is clean, but the labels argue it’s tainted by previous data. How do you even prove what a model was trained on?
Nine billion dollars is a staggering sum. This could really set the precedent for how AI training data is valued in court.