Elvis and Eminem rights holders are suing Suno
Rights holders for Elvis Presley and Eminem have filed lawsuits against AI music company Suno, alleging the unauthorized use of artist identities and voices. The suits claim Suno violates laws like Tennessee's ELVIS Act by training its models on copyrighted material to generate imitations.
Why it matters
These lawsuits represent a critical legal battleground regarding the intersection of generative AI, intellectual property rights, and the protection of human creative labor.
Suno is facing yet another pair of lawsuits. A group of rights holders of Elvis Presley’s music and the publisher of some of Eminem‘s biggest records are suing the AI music company, claiming it illegally generates music and lyrics that mimic those artists. The lawyers in the Presley suit claim that Suno has violated Tennessee’s Ensuring Likeness Voice and Image Security (ELVIS) Act, which makes it illegal for an AI company to clone a singer’s voice.
In the suit, lawyers representing Presley’s rights holders argue that “Suno has mechanically encoded itself with artists’ identities, hard-work, creativity, and time, and harnessed them all for a consistent conveyor belt of
cold hard cash.“ These suits closely mirror one filed by Jason Isbell and others in September, which claimed Suno created imitations of the plaintiffs but did not claim copyright infringement directly.
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