Threat level: rising. Suno, the AI music generator, faces two new lawsuits. One comes from a group of rights holders for Elvis Presley’s music. The other comes from the publisher behind some of Eminem’s biggest records. The Verge AI reports that both suits claim Suno illegally generates music and lyrics that copy these artists.
The Presley case is the one to watch. It doesn’t lean on copyright law. It relies on a voice-cloning statute that happens to share the King’s name.
🎯 Situation Report
Here’s what we know, according to The Verge AI:
- Two new plaintiffs. Elvis Presley’s rights holders and Eminem’s publisher filed separate suits against Suno.
- The legal weapon. The Presley lawyers say Suno violated Tennessee’s Ensuring Likeness Voice and Image Security (ELVIS) Act. That law makes it illegal for an AI company to clone a singer’s voice.
- The core accusation. The complaint says “Suno has mechanically encoded itself with artists’ identities, hard-work, creativity, and time, and harnessed them all for a consistent conveyor belt of cold hard cash.”
- The pattern. These suits closely mirror one filed in September by Jason Isbell and others. That case claimed Suno created imitations of the plaintiffs but didn’t claim copyright infringement directly.
- The pile keeps growing. Suno is already fighting suits from Sony, UMG, Isbell, Reservoir Media, and others.
🛡️ Suno’s Defense
Suno spokesperson Cat McCormack told The Verge that the company “exists to help people create new, original music, not to trade on anyone’s name or likeness.”
She listed the company’s current guardrails:
- Prompts can’t include specific artists’ names or songs.
- Third-party providers screen uploaded audio files and lyrics for possible misuse.
- New safeguards are promised to “protect artists and our users.”
That’s a reasonable first line of defense. But it doesn’t touch the bigger question. If a model can produce something that sounds like Elvis without anyone typing “Elvis,” a prompt filter won’t settle the issue.
⚖️ Why This Changes the Battlefield
For the past two years, the music industry’s fight against AI mostly ran through copyright law. The question was simple to ask and hard to answer: was training on copyrighted recordings fair use? Those cases move slowly, and the outcome is still uncertain.
Likeness laws open a second front. Tennessee passed the ELVIS Act in 2024, and it’s aimed squarely at AI voice cloning. Plaintiffs using it don’t need to prove anything about training data. They need to show the output imitates a real artist’s voice or identity. That’s a much easier story to tell a jury.
The Isbell case set up this playbook. Elvis and Eminem now give it star power. Expect other estates and publishers to copy the approach, especially in states with similar laws.
The language in these complaints also stands out. Calling Suno a “ravenous race to the bottom” that “aims to make human creativity obsolete” isn’t dry legal phrasing. It’s written to win public opinion as much as the case itself.
📡 Broader Intel
The music industry isn’t speaking with one voice. Some labels have already chosen licensing deals over lawsuits with AI music startups. Others are still fighting. That split matters. Every deal makes a licensed model of AI music look more normal, and every new lawsuit raises the cost of going without one.
For Suno, the math gets worse with each filing. Defending against a growing list of plaintiffs is expensive, and likeness claims are harder to dismiss early than broad copyright arguments.
🧭 What Practitioners Should Do Now
- Audit your outputs, not just your inputs. Likeness laws target what a model produces. Clean training data won’t protect you if outputs sound like a famous artist.
- Track state laws. Tennessee won’t be the last state to pass this kind of law. Voice and likeness protections are spreading.
- Treat guardrails as a product feature. Prompt filters and audio screening are now the bare minimum for any generative audio tool.
- Watch for settlements. Licensing deals may become the industry’s way out of these fights.
Assessment: These suits won’t shut Suno down tomorrow. But they shift the legal fight from “how was this trained?” to “who does this sound like?” That’s a harder question for AI music companies to dodge. You can find more details in The Verge’s original report.