Sony and UMG file second lawsuit against Suno, alleging licensed v6 models inherited earlier infringement

What happened: On September 18, 2026, Sony Music Entertainment and Universal Music Group filed a second copyright lawsuit against Suno in Massachusetts federal court, identifying 60,202 sound recordings the labels claim Suno copied. The new complaint, filed nine days after Suno launched its licensed v6 model generation (developed with Warner Music Group, BMG, and Believe), alleges v6 still benefits from earlier infringement because user preference signals from older models and knowledge distillation carried disputed material into the new models. The labels also allege Suno circumvented YouTube's download restrictions, seeking up to $2,500 per act. The complaint requests statutory damages of up to $150,000 per work (a theoretical ceiling above $9 billion) plus an injunction. Suno said the claims are "fundamentally flawed on both the facts and the law," stating v6 was trained on licensed content, user creations, preference signals, and accumulated technical learnings. This follows the first Sony/UMG suit (560 works, still ongoing); in August, a judge denied the labels' request to add 61,000+ recordings to that case, leaving them free to file separately.

Why it matters to creators: The case tests whether an AI company can shed liability for earlier training by launching a newly licensed model, or whether training lineage (preference data, distillation) carries the exposure forward. The labels are also using Suno's own licensing deals as evidence that a functioning market for training licenses exists.

What is not yet known: Whether courts accept the theory that model outputs, preference data, or distilled knowledge carry copyright liability across model generations; no ruling on the fair-use question in the original case has issued.