Musicians Jason Isbell, David Lowery, Guy Forsyth and Eduardo Calle sued Suno in federal court on August 31, 2026, seeking class-action status. The suit alleges the company "built and trained a model to index musicians by name," so that entering an artist's name generates a channel, song, description and graphic invoking that identity (Source: hollywoodreporter.com; wsj.com).
Infobox
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Plaintiffs | Jason Isbell, David Lowery, Guy Forsyth, Eduardo Calle (putative class) |
| Defendant | Suno, Inc. |
| Filed | August 31, 2026 |
| Theory | Performers' identity rights |
| Status | Active |
Claims
The theory distinguishes this action from the copyright suits already pending against Suno. Rather than alleging that training on recordings infringed the sound-recording copyrights held by labels, the plaintiffs assert their own rights in name and identity, alleging that the model's indexing of performers by name makes an artist's identity itself the retrieval key for generated output. That framing places the claim alongside the identity and voice-appropriation theories at AI Voice Cloning and the statutory approach of the NO FAKES Act, rather than the reproduction and fair-use questions at issue in UMG Recordings v. Suno (AI music training data) (Source: hollywoodreporter.com).
Suno's response
Suno said the claims are "without merit," that it blocks prompts for specific artists' names and copyrighted songs, and that it screens uploaded audio and lyrics through third-party providers (Source: hollywoodreporter.com).
Relation to the other Suno proceedings
Claims by Universal Music Group, Sony Music Group and Round Hill Music remain pending. Warner Music Group settled its own suit and entered a partnership with Suno in late 2025 (Source: hollywoodreporter.com). A separate German proceeding is tracked at GEMA v. Suno (Munich Regional Court).
Open questions
- The federal district in which the complaint was filed is not stated in the available reporting, and the complaint itself has not been retrieved.
- Which state right-of-publicity statutes or common-law theories the complaint pleads, and whether any federal claim accompanies them, is not reported.
Relationships
- litigates: Suno — defendant
- related: UMG Recordings v. Suno (AI music training data) — the pending copyright action against the same defendant
- related: GEMA v. Suno (Munich Regional Court) — parallel German proceeding
- related: AI Voice Cloning, NO FAKES Act (federal, proposed) — the identity-rights framing the suit rests on
- related: Media, Journalism & Entertainment — AI Deployment
- related: UMG Recordings v. DistroKid — label suit against a distributor over undisclosed AI-generated tracks, including two accounts whose tracks the complaint attributes mostly to Suno outputs