Suno sought dismissal of musicians’ identity-rights claims, arguing artist-name prompts describe musical styles in its AI tool.
Suno asked a federal judge to throw out musicians’ identity-rights claims, arguing that artist names entered into its AI music tool describe a sound.
The company filed its motion in Boston federal court in the proposed class action led by Jason Isbell.
“When people describe styles of music, they often use artists’ names as shorthand for the genre they perform in,” the filing states.
Suno says it converts those names into descriptions before sending instructions to its model.
The musicians accuse it of exploiting their identities without consent. Suno also raised First Amendment and federal copyright preemption defenses.
Isbell filed the lawsuit August 31 with David Lowery, Guy Forsyth and Eduardo Calle. It includes claims under state identity and biometric privacy laws.
Rap producers’ signatures have already become part of the wider legal fight over AI music. Music publisher Reservoir accused Suno of generating tracks with producer tags, the brief audio identifiers heard across Hip-Hop records.
Its copyright lawsuit covered 1,050 works and sought $157.5 million.
Reservoir alleged that Suno split recordings into vocal and backing tracks and used those parts, along with cover versions, to train its tools. The publisher also sought orders to stop the copying and destroy unlicensed copies.
The publisher challenged both the copying of recorded music during training and the appearance of producers’ audio signatures in newly generated tracks.
Suno has also been fighting over evidence in the copyright case brought by Universal Music Group and Sony Music. Apple Music asked a judge to limit testimony about its business after supplying information on AI songs available through the service.
Apple said Suno’s questions reached private licensing and royalty arrangements.
In its October 27 response, Suno tied four narrowed areas of questioning to its defenses. Those areas included label licensing and AI talks, Apple’s ability to operate without major catalogs, streaming fraud and communications about the case.
The company argued that the labels used their catalogs to seek restrictions on AI-generated music.
Judge Angel Kelley approved a schedule giving the musicians until December 1 to respond. Suno’s reply is due December 15.