Record labels accuse Suno of illegally ripping songs from YouTube to train AI

Major record labels have escalated their lawsuit against AI music generator Suno, alleging the startup illegally “stream ripped” copyrighted songs from YouTube to train its generative AI models. The updated complaint filed by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) on September 19th specifically accuses Suno of circumventing YouTube’s encryption technology, which could expose the company to additional penalties under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s anti-circumvention provisions.

What you should know: The RIAA’s amended complaint introduces new allegations that Suno violated YouTube’s terms of service by breaking through the platform’s technological protections.

• Record labels claim Suno “employed code to access, extract, copy, and download” copyrighted works from Universal Music Group, Sony Music, and Warner Music Group without authorization.
• The lawsuit alleges Suno circumvented YouTube’s “rolling cipher” encryption, which is designed to prevent unauthorized copying of content.
• This circumvention allegedly “has facilitated Suno’s ongoing and mass-scale infringement,” according to the complaint.

The legal stakes: The case now targets Section 1201 of the DMCA, which prohibits circumventing technological measures that control access to copyrighted works.

• The provision states that “no person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title.”
• Section 1201 has expanded significantly in recent years, creating barriers for activities ranging from phone unlocking to ice cream machine repairs.
• No specific exception currently exists for training AI tools under the DMCA’s circumvention provisions.

Suno’s defense under pressure: The company has maintained that training AI models on copyrighted materials falls under fair use doctrine, but the new allegations challenge this defense strategy.

• Suno hasn’t made its training datasets public and remains vague about how the data was acquired.
• Research from the International Confederation of Music Publishers (ICMP) suggests Suno sourced its training data illegally by circumventing YouTube’s encryption technology.
• The case bears similarities to a $1.5 billion book piracy settlement involving Anthropic, an AI company, though that case is currently on hold.

What’s at stake financially: The RIAA is seeking substantial damages that could reach hundreds of millions of dollars.

• Record labels are demanding $2,500 in statutory damages for each act of circumvention.
• The lawsuit also seeks up to $150,000 per work infringed.
• The complaint maintains that Suno fed “decades worth of the world’s most popular sound recordings” into its AI models without authorization.