Sony Music Entertainment and Universal Music Group (UMG) have filed a new lawsuit claiming that AI music generator Suno still infringes their copyrights with its v6 models. Suno says it trained the new generation on licensed content, but the labels argue the disputed approach could involve at least 60,202 recordings, Engadget reports.
Suno launched its v6 models after signing licensing deals with Warner Music Group (WMG) and BMG. The company pitches the release as the product of collaboration with rights holders and a step toward closer ties between AI and the music business. According to Suno, v6 was trained on three kinds of data: content licensed by partners, user interactions such as the songs people create and their preference data, and its own team’s work.
Those “interactions” are where the labels see a weak spot. Sony Music and UMG believe the term may cover output from Suno’s earlier models, which they say were trained on the labels’ recordings without permission. In other words, the lawsuit suggests Suno could have trained its new generation on material generated by older models, even after switching to licensed music.
If the court sides with the labels, damages under US copyright law could reach $9 billion. The labels may also seek up to $2,500 for each instance in which Suno circumvented YouTube’s download protections. That, they claim, is how the company may have obtained music for training. Both figures are claims and estimates from the complaint, not damages awarded by a court, and Suno’s ultimate liability will depend on how the case proceeds.
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Suno rejects the labels’ position. “These claims remain fundamentally wrong on both the facts and the law,” the company told Engadget. Suno added that its goal is to make music creation accessible to more people. Over the past two years, it says, it has stepped up those efforts and launched v6 in partnership with WMG, BMG and Believe. The company hopes AI and the music industry can strengthen each other and create new products for artists, listeners and the wider music community.
The new suit continues Suno’s earlier legal fight with the biggest record labels. Sony Music, UMG and WMG had all sued the company before, but WMG later signed a licensing deal with it.
Suno’s position was further complicated by a data breach in July 2026. According to media reports at the time, details that emerged afterwards pointed to mass scraping of music and lyrics from YouTube Music, Deezer, Genius and other platforms. It involved millions of songs and lyrics that may have been used to train Suno’s earlier models.
Suno previously defended this kind of data collection by citing the fair use doctrine in US law, which in some circumstances allows copyrighted material to be used without the rights holder’s permission. With the launch of v6, Suno stopped supporting its older models, yet the link between the old and new generations is now at the center of the dispute. The court will have to decide whether training on the output of earlier models, if it happened, amounts to a new copyright infringement.
