From Music Business Worldwide · · 2m
Suno seeks court dismissal of Jason Isbell’s right-of-publicity claim
Suno AI claims artist names are genre shorthand, not protected identities in class action.
In brief
Suno AI claims artist names are genre shorthand, not protected identities in class action. Suno AI moves to dismiss class action alleging it exploits musicians’ names as genre shorthand without copyright infringement. Originally reported by Music Business Worldwide.
Suno files motion to dismiss class action
Suno has asked a federal judge to dismiss the proposed class action lawsuit brought against it by Jason Isbell and three other musicians.
Suno claims artist names are genre shorthand
Suno argues that musicians’ right-of-publicity claims fail as a matter of law because artist names are shorthand for musical genres.
Suno cites August blog post
Suno references an August blog post by co-founder Mikey Shulman stating it has never allowed prompts for specific artists or copyrighted songs.
Suno’s October 20 answer to copyright suits
In its October 20 answer to copyright lawsuits from Universal Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment, Suno admitted it previously prevented artist names in prompts but allows them as of January 2026.
Plaintiffs list includes Isbell and others
Isbell filed the class action on August 31 with David Lowery, Guy Forsyth, and Eduardo Calle on behalf of musicians whose names Suno accepts as prompts.
Complaint claims no copyright ownership
The complaint states the musicians claim no ownership of country music, Americana, or any genre, style, or musical idea.
Suno argues genre ownership is legal
Suno counters that ownership of a genre or style is exactly what the plaintiffs’ legal theory would confer.
Suno’s style description for Isbell
Suno translates a request for Isbell’s music into a description of 'contemporary Americana singer-songwriter with fingerpicked acoustic guitar'.
Suno denies copyright infringement
Suno states that no state prohibits musicians from using names to describe their style without infringing copyright or creating confusion.
Suno says no artist name metadata
Suno claims it does not train its model to recognize artist names and has no 'artist name' metadata field in its training data.
Suno addresses bypass claims
Suno describes allegations that the artist-name filter could be bypassed by typing 't a y l o r s w i f t' as 'a handful of examples in which this function worked imperfectly'.
Suno argues First Amendment protection
Suno claims the plaintiffs’ name-recognition theory would be barred by the First Amendment and preempted by the federal Copyright Act.
The headline
Suno AI moves to dismiss class action alleging it exploits musicians’ names as genre shorthand without copyright infringement.
