IP Law Daily, COPYRIGHT—D. Mass.: In class action against Suno, no need to identify specific infringing outputs at the pleading level, (Aug 21, 2026)

By Matthew Hersh, J.D.

Allegations that the AI service trained on class members’ works and replicated the works of others were enough for now.

A country music singer and his affiliated record label and music publisher were entitled to move forward on their putative class action against an AI music generation service even though they had not yet identified specific instances where the AI service rendered outputs that were substantially similar to their own works, the District Court for the District of Massachusetts has held. But the court, in finding that the named plaintiffs had pleaded enough facts to permit at least an inference that their own works were reproduced as outputs, made clear that the plaintiffs would have to show such outputs after discovery (Justice v. Suno, Inc., No. 1:25-cv-11739-FDS (D. Mass. Aug. 20, 2026)).

The lawsuit is one of many currently pending against Suno, a popular AI music generator. The lawsuit was brought by Tony Justice, an independent country music artist (and full-time truck driver) who claims sales of 100,000 albums and over 21,000,000 YouTube views. The now-amended complaint, which is brought on behalf of five different putative subclasses of songwriters and artists, alleges that Suno unlawfully violated class members’ exclusive rights of reproduction by ingesting their works for training and then outputting them in response to customer prompts. The lawsuit also adds a second claim under the Copyright Act, for violation of the exclusive right to make derivative works, focused solely on Suno’s outputs. In addition, the lawsuit brings claims under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and Tennessee consumer protection law.

Suno moved to dismiss all but the reproduction claim, leading to this opinion.

Derivative works. The court found that the country music artist adequately alleged that Suno violated his exclusive right to make derivative works. Notably, while the complaint alleged that some Suno outputs were “verbatim or near-verbatim reproductions” of the class plaintiffs’ songs, it did not identify any specific Suno output that allegedly infringes plaintiffs’ songs. Instead, the court noted, the complaint provides examples of Suno outputs that “either outright replicate or substantially resemble songs owned by other copyright holders.” Was this enough to survive a motion to dismiss? The court found that it was.

Contrary to Suno’s argument, the court found, there was “no categorical requirement that a plaintiff must produce the derivative work at the motion to dismiss stage.” To be sure, the court noted, the most “straightforward way” to plead a derivative infringement claim was to attach the copyrighted work and the allegedly infringing work to the complaint. But “that is not the only way to plead substantial similarity,” the court emphasized. Here, the complaint alleged that Suno “structured its AI model to generate AI music designed to mirror the very songs it trains on” and provided 100 specific examples of Suno outputs that “closely imitate or replicate specific existing songs or artist identifiers.” The complaint also alleged comments by Suno’s CEO “that Suno’s model already has the ability to produce outputs that replicate real artists’ vocals and songs.” It was therefore a “plausible inference,” the court found, “that Suno’s model has likewise created outputs that are substantially similar to plaintiffs’ works.”

Nor did it even matter that Suno’s model was publicly available to the country music artist prior to the filing of his complaint, the court found. Suno contended that because its AI tool was publicly available, the artist could have used it to attempt to discover infringing outputs of his own works. “But whether plaintiffs can now use the AI tool to generate infringing outputs is a separate issue from whether the AI tool has ever been used by Suno to generate infringing outputs,” the court noted. Whether the artist can show such outputs after full discovery would be a question left for another day.

DMCA claim. The court also found that the artist’s DMCA claim was adequately pleaded. The artist contended that Suno gained access to his works from YouTube by using a stream-ripping tool to bypass YouTube security measures. This claim adequately alleged a DMCA violation, the court found. “Although 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,” the court emphasized, “those issues must be resolved at a later day.”

Tennessee law claims. While the court allowed the Copyright Act and the DMCA to move forward, it dismissed his Tennessee law cause of action—although the net impact of that finding was likely very little. The artist claimed that Suno misappropriated the name and likeness of various class members “to generate outputs that misappropriate their brands and identities in order to directly compete with them in the same marketplace.” But while the artist brought his claim under the Tennessee Consumer Protection Act, Tenn. Code Ann. § 47-18-101, he acknowledged during briefing of the motion to dismiss that he had meant to bring the claim under Tennessee common law. The court therefore dismissed the statutory claim but declined to consider whether the artist had plausibly stated a claim under the common law as that theory was not yet formally before it.

The Case is No. 1:25-cv-11739-FDS.

Judge: Saylor, F.

Attorneys: Krystle Delgado (Delgado Entertainment Law PLLC) for Anthony Justice. Andrew Gass (Latham & Watkins LLP) for Suno, Inc.

Companies: Suno, Inc.

Cases: Copyright MassachusettsNews GCNNews