Just when it seemed like AI music platform Suno was turning a corner by partnering with major record labels, two of the industry’s biggest players are dragging the company back into court. Sony Music Entertainment and Universal Music Group have filed a fresh joint lawsuit against Suno.
The new legal action targets Suno’s latest v6 AI-powered engine. Suno promoted v6 as a clean slate built with licensed music and user interactions. However, Sony and UMG argue the new system is still riding on the back of unlicensed music ripped from YouTube and other web platforms.
What is model laundering and how does it work?
The core argument of the new lawsuit centers on a concept the record labels call “model laundering.” According to court documents shared with The Verge, the labels claim that training a brand-new AI model on the outputs and user preference signals of an older, infringing model doesn’t make the new software clean.
Instead, the labels argue that Suno used a technique called knowledge distillation. In simple terms, they allege Suno trained its new “student” v6 model using the outputs of its “teacher” models, which were originally built using thousands of copyrighted tracks without permission. The complaint bluntly describes v6 as “the fruit of the same poisoned tree.”
A multi-billion-dollar legal war
This second lawsuit builds on an earlier court battle where labels claimed Suno copied over 60,000 sound recordings. With statutory damages reaching up to $150,000 per infringed work, plus extra penalties for bypassing YouTube’s anti-downloading tech, the theoretical bill for Suno could top $9 billion.
Suno has successfully signed licensing deals with Warner Music Group, BMG, and Believe. On the other hand, Sony and UMG have refused to sign. Suno told Engadget that the new claims are fundamentally flawed. They maintain that trained v6 on licensed material, community interactions, and team learnings. However, unless a judge agrees that training on past model outputs counts as a clean start, Suno’s fresh launch could end up facing serious legal turbulence.
