New York City-headquartered music publisher Reservoir has expanded its copyright lawsuits against artificial intelligence (AI) companies Suno and Anthropic in the US. The expanded actions were filed weeks after the original complaints.
New claims against Suno#
Reservoir is seeking substantial damages from Suno for alleged training-related infringement and violations of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), a US law. The complaints also cover allegedly infringing outputs.
Suno is already facing at least a dozen copyright disputes. The newer complaints draw on a growing set of developments, including searchable training datasets and a legal win by GEMA, Germany’s collecting society, against Suno in Germany. These developments are not exhaustive.
The newer actions also target alleged infringing outputs, including Claude’s alleged “verbatim or near-verbatim reproduction of lyrics” and Suno’s alleged derivative-work generations.
Damages figures#
- In the Anthropic action, the number of allegedly infringed works rose to 1,143, up from 853, for total statutory damages of $171.5 million.
- The DMCA damages tally also increased because of the new works, and the statutory relief sought in the initially mentioned claims has topped $445 million.
Other parties in the litigation#
Suno is being sued by the following parties:
- Universal Music
- Sony Music
- Independent artists
- Gerencia 360
- Eight Mile Style
- Elvis Presley Enterprises
- GEMA
- SOCAN
- KODA
- Artists including David Lowery
- Round Hill
Suno has user and revenue momentum and partnership agreements with Warner Music, BMG, and Believe.
Response from the majors#
Counsel for Universal Music and Sony Music disputed the claim. A substantial portion of the contracts involved predate the AI boom, and artists have the option of taking part in AI tie-ups but are not required to do so.
