Artists including Jason Isbell have filed a lawsuit against AI platform Suno, alleging that the software allows users to copy artists’ identity and musical style without consent.
Isbell filed the 84-page lawsuit alongside jazz saxophonist Eduardo Calle, Camper Van Beethoven’s David Lowery, and blues guitarist and songwriter Guy Forsyth in a Massachusetts federal court on Monday (August 31).
In the suit, they put forward 17 claims that the AI music-creating software violated several laws regarding personal publicity rights.
Instead of honing in on instances where specific songs may have been ripped off and putting forward copyright claims, the artists instead take aim at the overall structure of the platform – specifically how it allows users to type in a name of an artist, and have the platform quickly generate AI music that has a similar style and sound to the musician in question.
Examples in the lawsuit included an instance where typing “Jason Isbell” into Suno led to the platform making an AI song called ‘Paper Bell’ that it described as “contemporary Americana singer-songwriter with fingerpicked acoustic guitar” and a vocal style allegedly similar to that of Isbell.
There was a similar example when typing in “Camper Van Beethoven”, which allegedly led to the platform making an AI song that was a “quirky late-1980s alternative rock with folk-rock [and] occasional accordion and fiddle flourishes”.
Jason Isbell Files Class-Action Lawsuit Against AI Music Generator Suno, Claiming That It “Extracts Musicians’ Identities”https://t.co/35Z5SeMLeGhttps://t.co/35Z5SeMLeG
— Country Chord (@CountryChord) September 1, 2026
The same can be said when typing in names like ‘Taylor Swift’, or even song titles, the lawsuit claimed.
As reported by Consequence, court documents read: “A kid listening to music and then trying out a riff on his guitar is not the same as creating a name indexed commercial product based on essentially all available music on the internet.
“A musician’s identity is their property, but Suno took it without consent. This lawsuit is how these musicians resist the premise that resistance is futile.”
It continued: “Name responsiveness is a designed, systemic commercial feature of the platform – not an isolated technical artifact or unpredictable emergent behavior. The platform is built to identify musicians by name and generate identity-evocative output on command. This is its product.”
The filing also alleges that while Suno has denied that it takes the sound and style of artists without consent, the software has allowed for there to be loopholes where users can still type in an artists’ name in an attempt to create AI music that mimics their sound.
In their demands, Isbell and co have requested that the case be listed as class action – meaning that it represents artists who are not involved directly in the lawsuit, but are still being affected by Suno. They also request that Suno be made to pay out for both publicity rights violations and to compensate for the profits made by using artists’ identities without permission.
Last month, Suno lost a copyright infringement lawsuit to German licensing agency GEMA, after the latter argued that Suno was using songs in its repertoire – including Boney M’s ‘Daddy Cool’, Lou Bega’s ‘Mambo No. 5’, and Alphaville’s ‘Forever Young’ – to train its AI models, without obtaining any licenses or paying the songwriters.
That ruling also meant that other AI companies must now pay to license any music from GEMA’s repertoire going forward.
In 2024, Warner and fellow major music labels Sony Music Entertainment and Universal Music Group filed lawsuits against Suno for copyright violations of “an almost unimaginable scale”. In 2025, however, Warner settled the lawsuit by signing a licensing deal with the AI platform.
There has been a significant rise in AI-generated music available online in recent years, and streaming platform Deezer recently shared that AI-generated music now surpasses 50 per cent of daily uploads on the platform – the first time that human-made music has been outnumbered by AI alternatives. Before then, a study showed that 97 per cent of people “can’t tell the difference” between real and AI music.
