Elvis rights holders sue Suno over AI music and likeness claims

By Grace Kim

What did the California court receive?

Elvis Presley Enterprises and other rights holders sued Suno on Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, alleging that the AI music generator infringed 859 combined works.

The plaintiff coalition includes companies and individuals that own or exclusively control Presley’s name, image, likeness and copyrights. The group says Suno trained its models on copyrighted materials and lets users generate songs that mimic Presley’s distinctive voice, without authorization from the appropriate rights holders.

The complaint invokes Tennessee’s Ensuring Likeness, Voice, and Image Security Act, known as the ELVIS Act. The 2024 statute expanded protection against unauthorized use of a person’s likeness to include the person’s voice. The plaintiffs also allege direct copyright infringement on a scale never seen before.

Bottom line: These are allegations, not findings, and the court has not yet decided the claims.

How do the plaintiffs rebut Suno’s position?

Suno says it does not reprise specific melodies from songs written by others and has never allowed prompts naming specific artists or copyrighted songs. The plaintiffs dispute that account of the platform’s design and outputs.

Their response includes multiple exhibits with nearly 50 recorded examples of alleged direct infringement on Presley’s likeness and copyrights. The Raleigh plaintiffs supplied three more examples involving works they control.

The Raleigh group holds exclusive rights to hundreds of songs, including Chubby Checker’s 1955 hit “Let’s Twist Again.” Together, the two groups say Suno infringed 859 combined works.

The plaintiffs argue that the recorded outputs contain a voice readily identifiable as Presley and attributable solely to him, despite Suno’s denial that such outputs exist.

In a statement, the plaintiffs said: “Suno is the embodiment of why the ELVIS Act was so essentially required.” They said Suno took no part in creating or maintaining Presley’s image, stored that identity on servers and used it to make massive amounts of money without license, permission or payment.

The complaint also alleges that Suno acted intentionally, maliciously and fraudulently to benefit financially and artificially compete with Presley’s likeness and copyrights, and that the conduct continues.

Bottom line: The dispute concerns both what Suno trained on and what its system produces, not only whether users can name Presley.

What do the plaintiffs ask the court to do?

Beyond the ELVIS Act and direct copyright claims, the groups assert Tennessee’s common-law right of publicity, circumvention of copyright protection measures, and removal or alteration of copyright management information.

Neither group authorized Suno to copy, reproduce or otherwise use Elvis’s name, image and likeness or the works for AI training or any other purpose, the plaintiffs say.

They seek an injunction barring further infringement of the works, an order to destroy unauthorized copies, including copies in data sets, a complete record of training data, and damages for both plaintiff groups.

Bottom line: The requested remedies go beyond stopping future outputs and extend to stored copies and training records.

Who represents the plaintiffs, and how did they respond?

Both groups are represented by attorneys Richard Busch, Mark Block, David Niemierzycki and Andrew Davis of Adams & Reese, and Jeffrey Faucette and Martin Glick of Skaggs Faucette. Those attorneys also represent Eight Mile Style in its separate copyright lawsuit against Suno.

Suno’s representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Lark-Marie Antón, a representative for the plaintiffs, said the complaint and accompanying exhibits “speak for themselves.”

She added: “The name, image, likeness and music of Elvis Presley are among the most valuable intellectual property assets in the world. We protect those rights vigorously.”

Bottom line: Suno has not publicly answered the allegations, while the plaintiffs have placed their evidence and enforcement position on the record.

What does the separate music-publisher case add?

Eight Mile Style, a music publisher and copyright administration company, filed another suit against Suno on Friday in the same federal court. It owns and administers rights to license songs by Marshall Mathers, also known as Eminem.

Eight Mile Style accuses Suno of training its model on copyrighted work and using copyrighted lyrics in its outputs. The complaint says illicit copies of millions of works allowed the model to create entire songs with instrumentals, vocals and generated lyrics.

In late October, Elvis Presley Enterprises sued AI developer Anthropic, accusing it of direct copyright infringement. That case is separate from the two Suno complaints filed in California.

Bottom line: The second Suno case extends the dispute from Presley and other recording rights holders to music publishing and lyric licenses.

What should practitioners take from the filings?

Practitioners should separate copyright, voice and publicity issues in any assessment of a generative-music service. They should document where training material came from, how the service handles artist prompts and what its outputs reproduce. The request for training records and destruction of dataset copies also makes data retention and proof central.

Bottom line: The filings put licensing, output testing and training records at the center of AI-music enforcement.