AI music generators Suno and Udio have been hit with another lawsuit filed by independent artists in Illinois, alleging the companies trained their models on copyrighted recordings without authorization.
The complaints, each spanning roughly 100 pages, were filed by plaintiffs including indie R&B band Attack the Sound, father-son songwriting duo Stan and James Burjek, and members of Chicago group Directrix. They also accused the AI firms of flooding the market with substitute tracks that decrease licensing opportunities.
The lawsuits join earlier legal actions from major record labels and country musician Tony Justice targeting Suno and Udio.
The complaints allege both companies copied not just sound recordings but also lyrics scraped from databases like Genius, AZLyrics, Lyrics.com and Musixmatch without obtaining required licenses.
The plaintiffs accused Suno (read here) and Udio (read here) of using “stream-ripping” to download copyrighted material from YouTube, bypassing the platform’s anti-piracy protections.
“Suno/Udio obtained many of the copyrighted sound recordings in its training set by illicitly downloading them from YouTube using ‘stream-ripping,’ a well-known method of music piracy.”
Plaintiffs
The lawsuits read: “Suno/Udio obtained many of the copyrighted sound recordings in its training set by illicitly downloading them from YouTube using ‘stream-ripping,’ a well-known method of music piracy.”
The AI companies already face similar allegations from music companies and the class action led by Tony Justice. In September, labels owned by Sony Music, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group expanded their claims against the AI firms, alleging that they got their hands on copyrighted recordings by “stream-ripping” them from YouTube.
Suno then asked the court to dismiss the allegations. While Suno didn’t deny “stream-ripping” music from YouTube, the company’s legal team argued that the practice is not illegal under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). In response, the labels on Monday (October 20) filed a reply brief, writing: “The violation lies in the circumvention, not the reason for it.”
In the case filed by the Illinois musicians, the plaintiffs also claim Suno and Udio maintain internal libraries of copied audio and lyric files that staff and contractors access for testing and other purposes. They argue that Suno and Udio lack proper tracking or deletion protocols for these files.
“Suno/Udio staff and contractors had search and browse access to these corpora, and Suno/Udio lacks a copy accounting or deletion protocol, resulting in unbounded downstream copying.”
“Suno/Udio staff and contractors had search and browse access to these corpora, and Suno/Udio lacks a copy accounting or deletion protocol, resulting in unbounded downstream copying.”
Plaintiffs
They added that these stored copies were “retained and repurposed even when alternative sources later became available.”
The latest lawsuits also highlight market harm, with the artists arguing that even when the AI outputs don’t directly replicate specific songs, the AI models create “competitive, radio-quality substitutes” that reduce demand, lower prices and decrease licensing opportunities for indie artists’ works.
The Illinois artists’ lawyers wrote: “Suno’s/Udio’s unlicensed copying causes cognizable market substitution and dilution in multiple, well-defined music markets, even where any given AI output is not a near-verbatim copy, because Suno’s/Udio’s product supplies close substitutes at scale and is purposely designed and marketed to replace licensed music acquisition and production.”
The complaints also include claims under Illinois law. Under the Biometric Information Privacy Act, the artists allege the AI companies collected and used “biometric identifiers and voiceprints” from human performances without obtaining consent. The Illinois Right of Publicity Act claims center on alleged unauthorized commercial use of artists’ voices and identities.
Both lawsuits against Udio and Suno propose certifying classes of independent artists who own copyrights in recordings that were copied or used for AI training. One proposed class would cover artists with registered copyrights in sound recordings fixed after February 15, 1972.
The artists are seeking damages and injunctive relief to prevent continued violations. They are also seeking the deletion of “decrypted copies obtained via circumvention.”
Music Business Worldwide
