A lawsuit filed in the United States accuses Suno, Inc. of building a name-indexed artificial intelligence music platform that commercially exploits musicians’ identities without consent. The proposed class action, led by musician Jason Isbell and other artists, was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts on Sept. 4, 2026 by Korein Tillery.
The case, Jason Isbell, et al. v. Suno, Inc., asserts claims under multiple state right-of-publicity laws and the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act.
What the complaint alleges#
The complaint says Suno designed, trained, and commercially deployed a platform built to retrieve musicians by name and provide a multimedia experience evoking those musicians’ identities on command. It includes dozens of demonstrations and exhibits showing Suno producing, based on musicians’ names alone, songs similar to what the named musician might make, descriptions of the musicians’ attributes, and related images, such as a white glove for the artist Michael Jackson.
According to the complaint, Suno provides these outputs for musicians whose work spans multiple genres:
- Blues
- Rock
- Country
- Alternative
- Reggaeton
- Rap
- Pop
- Salsa
- Hawaiian
- Ska punk
- Alt-country-punk fusion
The lawsuit also alleges that Suno, without consent, created and stored voiceprints indexed by name when training its AI on musicians’ voices.
Legal team statement#
"Despite its assertions that Suno did not train its AI on specific musicians’ identities and does not allow artists’ names as prompts, its own public-facing product shows otherwise," said George A. Zelcs, Partner at Korein Tillery. "Further, Suno’s own licensing agreements with major music companies expressly recognize that a copyright license does not supply the separate consent required from the human creators whose identities have been commercially exploited. It’s time for musicians to have a seat at the table. We will work vigorously to protect their right to control the use of their own identities."
Korein Tillery has offices in St. Louis, Chicago, and Naples. The legal team on the matter includes George A. Zelcs, Audrey L. C. Austin, Marc Wallenstein, and Lucy Prather.
