Eight Mile Style LLC and Martin Affiliated LLC filed a complaint against AI music company Suno on 6 November in the US District Court for the Northern District of California, alleging infringement of rights in Eminem compositions used to train its music generator. Elvis Presley Enterprises and affiliated rights holders brought a separate case against Suno in the same court, alleging unauthorised use of Presley material and replicas of his voice, DancehallMag reported.
Key points
- Eight Mile Style’s complaint concerns 269 Eminem compositions and alleges unauthorised copying for AI training.
- The publishers seek $150,000 per composition and $672,000 over alleged removal of copyright information.
- The Presley plaintiffs also allege a violation of Tennessee’s ELVIS Act, which protects performers’ voices and likenesses.
- Suno says it prohibits unauthorised use of artists’ work and screens prompts and uploaded material.
Eight Mile Style names 269 compositions
Eight Mile Style describes itself in the complaint as a publisher and copyright administrator with exclusive rights, including licensing rights, in the 269 compositions at issue. The named works include ‘Lose Yourself’, ‘Without Me’, ‘Till I Collapse’, ‘The Real Slim Shady’ and ‘Stan’. Its co-plaintiff is Martin Affiliated LLC. Their case, numbered 3:26-cv-13399, requests a jury trial and accuses Suno of unlawful copying, evading technological controls, and deleting or changing copyright management information.
The publishers seek $150,000 for each of the 269 compositions and a further $672,000 for alleged removal of copyright information, DancehallMag reported. Those are amounts sought by the plaintiffs, rather than damages awarded by the court. The complaint concerns rights in musical compositions, while its allegations about Suno’s training also refer to sound recordings containing those works.
Eight Mile Style has previously litigated over the catalogue. It sued Spotify over Eminem streams in 2019, and a federal judge ruled in Spotify’s favour in 2024. The Suno complaint instead centres on copies the publishers allege were made to build a system that generates songs from users’ prompts.
Suno’s alleged training copies and access controls
In the complaint, the publishers allege that Suno copied their works without permission while assembling training material. They say Suno has admitted to taking “essentially all music files of reasonable quality that are accessible on the open Internet”. The plaintiffs argue that a collection of that breadth necessarily includes their compositions. Their account of what Suno copied and how it obtained the files remains an allegation in the case.
The complaint alleges that Suno obtained works from streaming services including Spotify, YouTube and SoundCloud, as well as paywalled platforms, by scraping material and bypassing technological access controls. It also alleges that Suno used tools and services supplied by Bright Data for part of that activity. Those assertions underpin the publishers’ claim concerning protection measures, alongside their infringement claim over copies allegedly made for training and on servers.
The publishers further allege that Suno removed copyright management information — information identifying a work and its rights holder — and trained its models to disregard it in both training and output. They say their works were used without a licence or payment. The complaint describes Suno as a company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, offering some free access to its music generator and charging monthly subscriptions for fuller use.
Presley rights holders invoke the ELVIS Act
The Presley plaintiffs’ case adds a different alleged use of an artist’s identity. Elvis Presley Enterprises and its affiliated rights holders claim that Suno used protected Presley material without permission and enabled unauthorised replicas of his voice. They also allege a breach of Tennessee’s ELVIS Act, a 2024 state law protecting performers’ voices and likenesses. The Eminem publishers’ complaint identifies copyright and copyright-management claims concerning their compositions.
The Presley plaintiffs allege that replicas of an identifiable performer’s voice were enabled without authorisation. In the Eminem case, the publishers likewise allege that users can generate music and lyrics resembling the compositions whose rights they administer. Both accounts are claims advanced against Suno.
Suno cites safeguards after Warner settlement
Suno disputed the characterisation of its service in remarks to Billboard reported by DancehallMag. It said it “exists to help people create new, original music, not to trade on anyone’s name or likeness, and we prohibit any unauthorized use of an artist’s work”. The company says it blocks prompts naming particular artists or songs. It also says third-party providers screen uploaded audio files and lyrics for potential misuse.
The cases follow litigation brought against Suno by major record labels in 2024 over its training data. Warner Music Group has since reached a settlement and partnership with the company. Suno says it is continuing to strengthen its safeguards and plans further measures intended to protect artists and users.
