September 19, 2026
Suno v6's origins challenged in new lawsuit: labels claim 60 202 recordings
On 18.09.2026, UMG and Sony filed a new lawsuit against Suno, alleging that the company copied 60 202 recordings without a license to train commercial AI models. The labels seek up to $150 000 for each recording, for a theoretical maximum of more than $9 bn, plus around $150 mn for circumventing YouTube protections. They also claim that v6 inherited knowledge from previous models through user interactions, preference data, and knowledge distillation.
On 08.09.2026, the company admitted in a court response that it obtained audio data from YouTube through YT-DLP. On 09.09.2026, Suno said that v6 was trained from scratch on a different dataset without Universal and Sony data, with participation from Warner Music Group, BMG, and Believe. **New twist.** The labels claim that earlier models were trained on unlicensed recordings and that v6, in their view, received their knowledge through user interactions, preference data, and knowledge distillation. On 18.08.2026, the judge denied the labels' request to add 61 026 recordings to the first case and noted that these recordings could be raised in a separate lawsuit. According to Suno's documentation, v6 and v6-wild are available to paid subscribers, v6-mini to everyone, and all three models generate tracks up to 8 minutes long in a single run.
Evidence discovery in the first case must conclude by 30.09.2026, after which the parties expect litigation over fair use.
