Elvis Estate and Eminem Publisher Sue AI Music Generator Suno

By Elena Vasquez

Elvis Presley music rightsholders and Eight Mile Style, the publisher behind hundreds of Eminem recordings, filed separate federal lawsuits against the AI music generator Suno this week, accusing the platform of copyright infringement and exploiting artists' identities.

The Presley suit, filed in the Northern District of California, names Authentic Brands Group and Raleigh Music Publishing among its plaintiffs. The 51-page complaint accuses Suno of violating Tennessee's Ensuring Likeness Voice and Image Security — the ELVIS Act — a 2024 law that bars AI companies from cloning singers' voices.

What do the lawsuits allege?

According to the Presley filing, Suno allowed users to generate tracks mirroring Presley's "rich vocal timbre" without permission whenever they cited his name in prompts. Eight Mile Style, which controls Eminem recordings including "Lose Yourself," "Without Me" and "The Real Slim Shady," alleged that Suno let users generate songs and lyrics replicating the rapper's work.

Eminem is not individually participating in the suit, and a representative for the rapper did not respond to a request for comment.

Attorneys Richard Busch, Mark Block, David Niemierzycki and Andrew Davis represent both plaintiff groups. They argued 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."

Both complaints included examples of generated songs that allegedly sounded like Presley or produced lyrics replicating Eminem's work.

"The next Elvis won't pick up a guitar," the attorneys wrote in the Presley case. "Suno's ravenous race to the bottom aims to make human creativity obsolete, coldly replicating without a license in seconds what takes years to learn, struggle with, maintain, and endlessly attempt to make better and perfect."

How has Suno responded?

A Suno spokesperson said in a statement: "Suno exists to help people create new, original music, not to trade on anyone's name or likeness, and we prohibit any unauthorized use of an artist's work."

The spokesperson added: "We do not allow prompts for specific artists' names and songs and work with third party providers to screen uploaded audio files and lyrics for potential misuse. We are always working to strengthen our guardrails."

Suno has denied similar allegations in a separate class-action filing led by Americana singer Jason Isbell, who accused the platform of letting users exploit musicians' identities. In that case, plaintiffs argued users could bypass restrictions by asking for tracks invoking an artist's "tone and phrasing," using real names instead of stage names — as with the rapper Common — or adding spaces between the letters of a name.

"This lawsuit seeks to recover the value of those misappropriated identities and to stop their ongoing commercial exploitation," attorney Alan D. Rose wrote in the Isbell-led suit. Suno denied the allegations and told the court there was "nothing unlawful" about requesting a song in the vein of an artist.

The Presley case tests whether an artist or estate can use the courts to protect name, image and likeness from AI companies operating without authorization or compensation.

A pattern of litigation

The new filings follow earlier suits by the same parties against major AI developers:

• Authentic Brands Group and other Presley publishers sued Anthropic last month, claiming its chatbot Claude was trained on 274 Presley songs, including "Can't Help Falling in Love with You." They demanded $48.6 million in damages. Anthropic denied the allegations.
• Eight Mile Style sued Meta in June for roughly $110 million, alleging 243 Eminem recordings were stored across Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram without permission. Meta attorneys called the suit "fanciful," but a federal judge in Michigan allowed the case to proceed into discovery.

Suno also faces suits from publisher Round Hill Music and major labels Universal Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment. Warner Music Group settled its case last year, and deals with WMG, BMG and Believe powered Suno's label-backed "v6" model, released in September. UMG and Sony sued over that model anyway, calling it "the fruit of the same poisoned tree."

The litigation has not dented Suno's finances: the company raised $400 million in June at a $5.4 billion valuation. The stacking lawsuits will now test whether identity-protection statutes like the ELVIS Act can reach AI-generated sound-alikes — and at what cost to Suno's business model.