AI music company Suno is facing two new lawsuits from rights holders associated with Elvis Presley and Eminem, adding to the growing legal pressure on companies that build generative music tools around large-scale training data and voice-like outputs.
According to the complaints described by The Verge, the plaintiffs allege that Suno can generate music and lyrics that mimic the artists. The Presley-related case also invokes Tennessee’s Ensuring Likeness Voice and Image Security Act, commonly called the ELVIS Act, a law aimed at restricting unauthorized AI voice cloning.
A dispute over artistic identity
The lawsuits focus on a difficult boundary for generative AI: the difference between making an original work in a broad musical style and producing something that is recognizable as a particular performer. For musicians, that distinction can involve more than copyright in a recorded song or composition. It can also concern voice, name, likeness, artistic identity and the commercial value attached to each.
Lawyers representing Presley’s rights holders argue that Suno has encoded artists’ identities into a system used to generate outputs for profit. The suit’s language frames the technology as a tool that can replicate creative labor without authorization. The Eminem-related action similarly alleges unlawful generation of music and lyrics that imitate the artist.
The cases closely resemble an earlier lawsuit filed in September by Jason Isbell and other artists, The Verge reported. That earlier litigation also alleged that Suno generated imitations of the plaintiffs, although it did not directly advance a copyright-infringement claim.
Tennessee’s ELVIS Act enters the debate
The Presley lawsuit’s reliance on Tennessee law is notable because it brings a voice-cloning statute directly into a dispute over a mainstream AI music platform. The ELVIS Act is designed to make unauthorized AI cloning of a singer’s voice unlawful. In practice, applying such a law may require courts to assess how closely an output resembles a protected voice, what role a model’s design and data play in producing that result, and which safeguards are sufficient.
Those questions are central to the generative-AI policy debate. Audio systems can be asked to make a new recording, but users may value them precisely because they can evoke a known performer. Rights holders, meanwhile, contend that a tool capable of producing recognizable imitations can undermine the licensing markets and creative control that support performers.
The disputes could therefore become a test of how publicity and likeness protections interact with AI systems that do not simply distribute an existing recording, but generate a new one in response to prompts.
Suno says it blocks artist-specific requests
Suno disputes the premise that it exists to trade on artists’ identities. Company spokesperson Cat McCormack told The Verge that Suno is intended to help users create new, original music and that it prohibits unauthorized use of artists’ work.
McCormack said the company does not allow prompts for specific artists’ names and songs. She also said Suno works with third-party providers to screen uploaded audio files and lyrics for potential misuse, and that it continues to strengthen its safeguards.
That response points to an important operational issue for AI music services. Restricting explicit artist-name prompts may prevent some obvious attempts to create a clone, but disputes can still arise over how a system responds to indirect descriptions, uploads or combinations of musical and vocal attributes. The legal focus may extend beyond what a platform’s written rules prohibit to whether the product can nevertheless produce allegedly infringing or misappropriating results.
Mounting legal exposure for AI music
The new actions add to lawsuits Suno is already facing from major music companies, including Sony and Universal Music Group, as well as from artists including Isbell. The accumulation of cases illustrates that AI music is being challenged across several legal theories rather than through a single, settled rule.
Music companies have been especially alert to generative systems because recordings and songs are both highly valuable and highly identifiable. The commercial appeal of a familiar vocal character can be immediate, while the cost of producing an imitation may be far lower than recording new material through a conventional studio process.
For AI companies, the outcome may shape product design as much as courtroom strategy. Services may seek stronger prompt controls, more robust screening of user uploads and clearer ways to distinguish permitted inspiration from prohibited impersonation. Rights holders may push for licensing arrangements, technical restrictions, or both.
Why the cases matter
These lawsuits arrive as generative AI moves from text and images into everyday creative tools for audio. The arguments surrounding Suno are not solely about whether software can help people make music. They concern whether the economic and personal attributes of a famous performer can be reproduced at scale without consent.
Courts will ultimately determine the claims in these cases. But the litigation already makes one point clear: artist likeness and voice protections are becoming a major front in the governance of generative media. As services add safeguards and rights holders press their claims, the line between creative assistance and digital impersonation will receive increasingly close scrutiny.
This article is based on reporting by The Verge. Read the original article.
Originally published on theverge.com
