Universal Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment want Lightspeed Venture Partners, the lead investor in Suno‘s Series B round, to hand over documents and testify about the AI music company.
The labels made their case in a filing in Boston federal court last Tuesday (October 13), opposing Lightspeed’s motion to quash their subpoena.
Among the topics they want a Lightspeed representative to answer questions on: the “legal risk of training data,” as discussed in a document Lightspeed has already produced in the case.
A narrowed version of the subpoena, filed with the court by Universal and Sony, also seeks testimony on the “Risks” listed in that document – specifically “regulation around training data and/or label lawsuits.”
The same Lightspeed document discusses a “two sided music platform,” according to the subpoena.
Lightspeed led Suno’s USD $125 million Series B in May 2024 and holds a seat on Suno’s Board of Directors, according to the labels’ brief.
“After Plaintiffs sued Suno for copyright infringement on a massive scale, Lightspeed doubled and tripled down, investing again in Suno’s Series C (November 2025) and Series D (June 2026) rounds,” the brief.
That Series D raised over $400 million at a $5.4 billion valuation.
In a May 2024 post announcing its Series B investment, Lightspeed wrote that Suno’s v3 model “can generate full length songs worthy of top 40 radio airplay in mere seconds,” MBW noted at the time.
Lightspeed produced 152 documents in October 2025 in response to an earlier subpoena from the labels, according to the brief.
That collection only ran up to June 6, 2025, and so captured nothing from the Series C or Series D rounds, the labels say.
“A company raising capital tells its investors, candidly and in detail, what market it is targeting, whose share it intends to take, how fast it is growing, and what risks, including legal risks, it faces.”
Universal and Sony filing
Their new subpoena, served on August 24, seeks documents dated from June 7, 2025, onward, plus a deposition of a corporate designee.
Lightspeed refused to provide any documents or testimony, and filed its motion to quash in the Northern District of California on September 16, according to the filing.
That motion was transferred on October 2 to the District of Massachusetts, where Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV is overseeing the labels’ original 2024 lawsuit against Suno.
The labels argue that Lightspeed‘s files are relevant to Suno’s fair use defense, and to whether Suno’s alleged infringement was willful.
“A company raising capital tells its investors, candidly and in detail, what market it is targeting, whose share it intends to take, how fast it is growing, and what risks, including legal risks, it faces,” Universal and Sony argue.
The brief claims that Lightspeed‘s “own analyses concede” certain points, but the quoted language is redacted in the public version of the filing.
It adds that “investor productions in this case have already yielded evidence of Suno‘s knowledge and market strategy that Suno itself never produced.”
The labels have asked the court to impound unredacted versions of their papers, which they say contain material Lightspeed designated “Highly Confidential–Attorneys’ Eyes Only.”
Material designated as confidential by two other Suno investors, Institutional Venture Partners (IVP) and Founder Collective, is also included, according to that motion.
The labels call Lightspeed’s motion “an attempt to relitigate issues that Judge Levenson has already considered,” referring to Magistrate Judge Paul G. Levenson.
Suno had asked Levenson for a protective order covering subpoenas served on four of its investors, including Lightspeed, and he heard the dispute on August 26, according to the brief.
“I don’t get why investors in Suno would be irrelevant to a consideration of what is Suno’s anticipated or ongoing behavior in the marketplace.”
Magistrate Judge Paul G. Levenson, at an August 26 hearing
“I don’t get why investors in Suno would be irrelevant to a consideration of what is Suno’s anticipated or ongoing behavior in the marketplace,” Levenson said at the hearing, according to a transcript excerpt filed by the labels.
The judge also recalled that comments about where Suno intended to get its data, and whether it “would be essentially mined or farmed from YouTube,” had come up with an investor, which the labels’ counsel confirmed.
That, Levenson said, “strikes me as the kind of thing that is more likely found when you ask people what did they say when they showed you the pitch deck.”
Suno admitted in a September 1 court filing that it obtained audio from YouTube for use as training data, using a tool called YT-DLP.
On discovery generally, Levenson said he was “sort of inclined to the view of it is all fishing and the question is is it smart fishing, reasonably targeted with appropriate bait or is it, you know, five-mile gill nets through the Pacific Ocean.”
Levenson did not grant the protective order, according to the labels, and said he expected the parties “to work as best they can to minimize burden on third parties.”
Lightspeed, which is represented by Latham & Watkins – the same law firm as Suno – argued in its motion that the subpoena is untimely, cumulative of its earlier production, and burdensome, according to the labels’ brief.
The labels counter that Lightspeed “is a repeat investor in the defendant, holds a seat on its Board, shares the defendant’s counsel, and stands to benefit directly if Suno’s fair use defense prevails.”
They also point to a September 2025 ruling connected to their case against Suno rival Udio, in which Magistrate Judge Kandis A. Westmore ordered Udio investor Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) to comply with a similar subpoena.
“In short, this is not a case where a16z was a mere passive investor, whose only role was deciding whether or not to invest in Udio,” Westmore wrote.
Investor remarks have featured in the case before: the labels’ complaint against Suno cited comments from Antonio Rodriguez of Matrix Partners, an early investor in Suno.
Rodriguez told Rolling Stone in 2024 that potential lawsuits from rightsholders were “the risk we had to underwrite when we invested in the company.”
Universal and Sony filed a second lawsuit against Suno on September 18, covering 60,202 recordings, after Saylor refused their request to add 61,026 works to the original case.
Warner Music Group, originally a co-plaintiff, settled with Suno in November 2025 and signed a licensing deal.
The labels’ brief cites Suno’s “Speech (beta)” launch and its partnership with Believe and TuneCore, arguing that Suno “has taken steps to infiltrate additional markets and extend its reach well beyond where it operated when this case was filed.”
“The longer this case goes on, the more Suno’s footprint expands, and the more Plaintiffs’ harm grows with it.”
Universal and Sony, in their opposition to Lightspeed’s motion to quash
“The longer this case goes on, the more Suno‘s footprint expands, and the more Plaintiffs’ harm grows with it,” the brief states.
The labels have asked the court to deny Lightspeed’s motion, order it to produce documents within seven days, and have it sit for a deposition within 14 days after that.
Their narrowed subpoena cuts the deposition topics from 20 to 16, including Lightspeed’s role on Suno’s board, Suno’s “Partnerships Tracker,” and any pre-investment business relationships with Suno co-founders Michael Shulman, Keenan Freyberg, Georg Kucsko, and Martin Camacho.
Lightspeed can file a reply by October 20, under a briefing schedule the parties have jointly asked the court to approve.Music Business Worldwide