Justice v Suno Inc
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Justice v. Suno, Inc. is a copyright and Digital Millennium Copyright Act case brought by independent artists against the AI music generator Suno. In an August 20, 2026 order, the District of Massachusetts allowed the challenged federal claims to proceed past a motion to dismiss and dismissed a Tennessee consumer-protection claim. The court assessed whether the allegations were plausible; it did not decide infringement or circumvention liability.[1]
Allegations and ruling
The amended complaint alleges that Suno copied plaintiffs' recordings from YouTube for model training and generated music resembling protected songs. On the derivative-work claim, the court held that a plaintiff need not categorically identify or attach a particular infringing output at the pleading stage if other concrete allegations plausibly support substantial similarity. It relied on allegations about model design, roughly 100 outputs resembling other rightsholders' songs, and statements attributed to Suno's chief executive. Proof of infringing outputs remains for later proceedings.[1]
The court also allowed a claim that Suno circumvented YouTube's rolling cipher to obtain recordings to proceed, following its reasoning in the related label case. It dismissed the Tennessee Consumer Protection Act claim because plaintiffs did not defend that pleaded claim and could not replace it with a different theory through their opposition brief.[1]