Suno has renewed its push to dismiss most claims in a copyright lawsuit brought by artists including Tony Justice, arguing that removing certain allegations would let courts focus on whether training AI models on copyrighted music qualifies as fair use.
The generative AI music platform filed a reply memorandum on Friday (November 21), defending its October motion to dismiss parts of the amended complaint. Justice’s team had opposed the dismissal request earlier this month.
The lawsuit is one of several copyright infringement cases that Suno is currently facing, including lawsuits from major record labels. In all of these cases, Suno is being accused of copyright infringement, particularly alleged violations of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act by “stream-ripping” music from YouTube.
As with the labels’ case against Suno, the lawsuit filed by Justice also included allegations that Suno circumvented YouTube’s “rolling cipher” encryption system, which regularly changes access codes to prevent external downloading of videos and audio files.
In its latest response, which you can read in full here, Suno argues the cipher is a “copy control,” not an “access control,” and that Section 1201(a) of the DMCA prohibits circumvention of access controls, 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 Reply memorandum
Suno’s lawyers wrote: “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.”
The company argues YouTube content remains “freely accessible” for streaming without passwords or decryption, distinguishing it from systems like DVD encryption that actually block access to content. “[I]t makes it impossible for a user who does not have a DVD player to watch the DVD and access its contents,” according to Suno’s reply.
Suno also argues that Congress deliberately separated access controls from copy controls” because copy controls could be easily characterized the same way.”
The complaint added: “The rolling cipher is a copy control that restricts downloads but does not control access to the works available on YouTube within the meaning of section 1201. Because it is not unlawful to circumvent a copy control, Plaintiffs have not stated a claim under section 1201.”
Additionally, Suno is seeking to dismiss claims alleging it created infringing derivative works. The complaint accuses Suno of violating exclusive rights by using copyrighted songs to prepare derivative works. However, Suno argues Justice failed to identify any Suno-generated output that resembles the eight specific songs cited in the lawsuit.
“Without identifying any works that allegedly infringe their derivative work rights and with no reason why they could not do so, Plaintiffs’ infringement claim cannot move past the pleading stage.”
Suno’s Reply memorandum
Suno’s legal team wrote: “Without identifying any works that allegedly infringe their derivative work rights and with no reason why they could not do so, Plaintiffs’ infringement claim cannot move past the pleading stage.”
“Despite having continuous access to the publicly available Suno product, Plaintiffs still have not done so.”
The company is also moving to dismiss an unfair competition claim related to market advantages Suno allegedly gained by using the artists’ work to compete against them.
Suno argues this claim was not pleaded in the amended complaint, which references the Tennessee Consumer Protection Act but does not allege Suno “passed off” its services as those of the plaintiffs.
The AI company’s reply added: “Regardless, Plaintiffs’ proposed unfair competition claim is preempted by the Copyright Act because it simply repackages allegations of unauthorized copying without supplying any ‘extra element.’”
Separately last week, Suno filed a motion seeking to dismiss another lawsuit brought by indie R&B band Attack the Sound. Suno, along with its peer Udio, was hit with a lawsuit filed by Attack the Sound, father-son songwriting duo Stan and James Burjek, and members of Chicago group Directrix last month, alleging the companies trained their models on copyrighted recordings without authorization.
While Udio has already settled its lawsuit against Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group, Suno continues to face litigation against the music majors including Sony Music Entertainment. As MBW pointed out last week, Suno will be reading Warner Music Group CEO Robert Kyncl’s blog post very closely as the company has vowed to “legislate, litigate, license” AI-generated content.
Suno still has yet to secure licensing deals from the major music companies.
Despite the challenges, last week, Suno closed a $250 million Series C round at a $2.45 billion post-money valuation. The round was led by Menlo Ventures with participation from NVentures (NVIDIA’s venture capital arm), Hallwood Media, Lightspeed and Matrix. Menlo Ventures is a long-running venture capital fund that helped fund numerous known tech brands like Roku and Hotmail (before it was acquired by Microsoft), and more recently turned its focus on AI companies like Anthropic.
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