A label and publisher specializing in regional Mexican music has filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against artificial intelligence (AI) music company Suno, claiming its catalog was used to train the platform to generate Spanish-language songs.
The complaint was filed Monday (Aug. 31) by Gerencia 360 Music, an independent regional Mexican record label and publisher. It is the latest in a series of AI training lawsuits brought against Suno by music rightsholders, including major labels, independent companies and individual artists.
Allegations and damages#
Gerencia alleges that Suno took its music from streaming services and fed it into the training corpus for an AI model that lets users generate new songs. The lawsuit specifically says Gerencia’s catalog was necessary for Suno to teach its model to create songs in Spanish.
In the complaint, filed by veteran music litigator Richard Busch, Gerencia argues:
“Gerencia’s works are especially important to Suno because they are hugely popular Spanish language works, which Suno has misappropriated to train its models so they may provide Spanish language songs in response to user queries. Without its infringement of Gerencia’s Spanish language copyrighted works, Suno would not have been well-positioned to capture a significant share of the Spanish language AI user market.”
Busch said the catalog includes “some of the most recognizable and commercially valuable songs in the history of Regional Mexican and Latin music,” including works by:
- Adriel Favela
- Javier Rosas
- Giovanny Ayala
- Cornelio Vega y su Dinastia
- Noel Torres
The lawsuit seeks nearly $100 million in damages. A Suno representative declined to comment on the lawsuit Monday.
Prior AI training lawsuits#
Suno’s copyright disputes began in 2024, when the three major labels jointly sued the company for infringing sound recordings “at an almost unimaginable scale.” Other rightsholders later filed their own cases, including a group of independent artists seeking class action status and production music company Jamendo. Two weeks ago, independent publisher Round Hill Music opened another case, also authored by Busch.
Fair use and settlements#
Suno maintains that its AI training process was legal under copyright law’s fair use principle, which allows unlicensed works to be reused for transformative purposes. The question remains untested in court and is central to dozens of ongoing AI copyright lawsuits.
Suno has also reached agreements with some larger music companies. Warner Music Group (WMG) exited the major labels’ lawsuit last fall by signing a settlement that requires Suno to train a new model on licensed music. BMG reached a similar deal with Suno earlier this month.
