Suno Says Jason Isbell Lawsuit Over Artist ‘Identities’ Must Be Dismissed: ‘Nothing Unlawful About That’
Categoria: Musica
The AI music company has filed its first major response to the novel lawsuit, which accuses it of violating musicians' likeness rights.
Por Billboard | 03/11/2026
Suno is asking a judge to throw out a lawsuit claiming the AI music firm stole the artistic identities of Jason Isbell and other stars, arguing there’s “nothing unlawful” about seeking to replicate the “vibe” of a particular artist. Isbell sued in August , accusing Suno of allowing users to “conjure up a beloved musician’s identity” by entering their name as a prompt in its AI song generator. It was a novel case centered on an artist’s likeness rights , unlike earlier litigation against AI labs over the use of copyrighted music to train models. Related Jason Isbell Files Class Action Lawsuit Claiming Suno Coded AI to ‘Extract Musicians’ Identities’ Kenny MacPherson, Veteran Music Publisher and Big Deal Music Co-Founder, Dies at 71 Diddy Moved From New Jersey Prison to Similar Facility in Pennsylvania But in Suno’s first major response on Tuesday (Nov. 3), its lawyers say there is “nothing unlawful” about merely using an artist’s name to describe music, any more than it’s illegal for a human artist to say “let’s go for something here with more of a Jason Isbell vibe.” “When people describe styles of music, they often use artists’ names as shorthand for the genre they perform in,” Suno’s lawyers write in a motion obtained and first reported by Billboard . “This case turns on the premise that the law somehow condemns that universal practice. In reality it does not; the First Amendment would not allow it to.” Suno’s motion, which asks the judge to dismiss the case immediately, argues that Isbell’s lawsuit attacks “ubiquitous methods of communicating ideas” and would hurt the “creative and cultural ecosystem” if allowed to proceed. An attorney for Isbell did not immediately return a request for comment on Tuesday. Isbell and other artists sued in August, accusing Suno of violating artists’ likeness rights (also known as publicity rights) by encoding their entire musical personas as tokens in its AI model. The case was filed as a class action, seeking to potentially represent “millions” of other artists: “The platform is built to identify musicians by name and generate identity-evocative output on command. This is its product.” Related UMG & Sony Hit Suno With New Lawsuit After Label-Backed Model: ‘Fruit of the Same Poisoned Tree’ Suno was already facing a slew of lawsuits from major music companies, who claim the company violated their federal copyrights by ingesting millions of songs to train their models. The new case was different, accusing Suno of breaching state laws in New York, California, Tennessee and elsewhere that protect a person’s name, image and likeness from commercial exploitation. Suno says it doesn’t actually allow users to prompt its AI model with specific artist names. When users do enter artist names, the platform says it translates that request into “descriptive musical characteristics,” which can then be used to direct the model to generate a song. A prompt of “Duran Duran,” for