Round Hill Music has filed two copyright lawsuits against Suno and Anthropic, alleging the artificial intelligence (AI) companies infringed tens of thousands of songs to train their models and used more than 500 Round Hill songs without authorization, with potential damages exceeding $1 billion. The cases were filed Monday, Aug. 17, and are the latest legal actions against AI developers over the use of copyrighted material for training.
Songs and Potential Damages
Round Hill alleges the AI firms used more than 500 of its songs without permission, including:
- “Iris” by the Goo Goo Dolls
- “Total Eclipse of the Heart” by Bonnie Tyler
- “I Got You (I Feel Good)” by James Brown
The company says the cases could later be expanded to thousands more songs, with damages that could conceivably exceed $1 billion.
Richard Busch, a veteran music litigator representing Round Hill, said the company “brings this action to enforce [its] exclusive rights against defendant Suno, who has built its entire business model on copyright infringement at a scale never seen before.”
Round Hill’s Position
Round Hill CEO Josh Gruss said the company is “not against artificial intelligence” but “against the idea that you can build a business worth billions on top of other people’s creative work and pay the creators nothing.”
Gruss also said licensing is not an obstacle to innovation but exists to protect the legal owners of the raw material and their property. “As an independent music company, we have the freedom and obligation to say that plainly and to act on it,” he said.
In his statement on Monday, Gruss suggested a settlement was unlikely: “We intend to take these cases to trial and to hold these companies accountable, and we will not accept a resolution that leaves songwriters and artists deprived of their rightful share of compensation.”
Industry Lawsuits and Settlements
Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment brought a similar lawsuit against Suno in 2024. UMG and Sony are continuing to litigate that case, while Warner reached a settlement in November to license its catalog to Suno.
Suno has been sued by all three major music companies, and Anthropic, the company behind Claude, has faced numerous similar lawsuits across industries. AI technology uses millions of existing works to train models to create new ones. Book authors, newspapers, visual artists, movie studios and record labels have all sued AI labs over the process, claiming copyright infringement. AI companies argue that they have transformed the works into something new and that this is legal fair use. Billions in potential damages and licenses turn on that unresolved legal question.
Neither Suno nor Anthropic immediately returned requests for comment on Monday.
