UMG and Sony Expand Suno Copyright Lawsuit, Claiming AI Company Broke YouTube’s Anti-Download Rules

More news from the copyright infringement lawsuit that Universal Music Group (UMG) and Sony Music Entertainment have brought against AI music giant Suno. The labels have officially added a claim that Suno circumvented YouTube’s anti-download technology in order to scrape music for AI model training.

The details:

• On August 18, Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV of the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts permitted the labels to bring the new claim under Section 1201(a) of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

• Saylor also rejected the labels' attempt to add 61,026 recordings to the suit. 560 are currently under scrutiny.

• The labels first tried to add this claim in September 2025.

• Suno argued against it by stating that the DMCA doesn’t prohibit such activity.

• Suno argued that the DMCA regulations focus on “circumventing controls on access to a copyrighted work, not controls on copying it.”

• As such, the recent approval specifically accuses Suno of engaging in this illicit activity.

What they said:

• The labels: “[Suno] acquired many (if not all) of the copyrighted sound recordings in its training data by illicitly downloading them from YouTube using a notorious method of music piracy known as ‘stream ripping.’”

• Saylor: “The ultimate determination of whether Suno circumvented a technological measure that effectively controls access to plaintiffs’ sound recordings will require a developed factual record on how the technological measure and circumvention tools work. At this stage, however, the complaint alleges a plausible claim for violation of § 1201(a)(1), and the Court will grant plaintiffs’ motion for leave to amend.”