Suno Continues to be Battered by Copyright Lawsuits

Suno continues in its push to dismiss many claims in a copyright lawsuit brought on by various artists, including Tony Justice. It argues that the removal of certain allegations would allow courts to focus on whether the training of AI models on copyrighted music would qualify as fair use.

The AI music platform had filed a reply memorandum on Friday, November 21st defending its move to dismiss portions of the complaint. Justice’s team had declined the dismissal request.

This lawsuit is one of many copyright infringement cases that Suno is facing at this time, along with lawsuits from several record label companies. In each case copyright infringement is inflicted upon Suno, also with “steam-ripping” music from YouTube, which is a violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

The lawsuit filed by Justice did mention allegations that Suno had evaded YouTube’s ‘rolling cipher’ encryption system, which is a process that regularly changes access codes that fends off external downloading of audio files and videos. Suno argued that the cipher is a ‘copy control’ and not an ‘access control’, that Section 1201(a) of the DMCA prevents bypassing of access controls and not copy controls.

“While YouTube’s rolling cipher presents a barrier to parties seeking to download files containing plaintiffs’ works (making it a copy control), it does not at all restrict or otherwise control one’s ability to access those works,” Suno’s lawyers argue.

Suno asserted that YouTube content is “freely accessible” for streaming without encryption or passwords.

As a separate matter last week, Suno had filed a motion that sought to dismiss another lawsuit brought by Attack the Sound, an indie R&B band. Suno and its peer company Udio had been struck with a lawsuit filed by the father-son songwriting duo of Attack the Sound, James and Stan Burjek. Last month, a Chicago group by the name of Directrix had alleged that the two companies were training their AI models on unauthorized copyrighted recordings.

Suno still faces litigation against other music giants such as Sony Music Entertainment. Suno will vow to “legislate, litigate, and license” AI-generated content, according to MBW last week. Suno still has not secured licensing deals from any of the major music companies.