Judge lets most claims proceed in suit accusing Suno of copying songs from YouTube to train its model

What happened

On 20 August 2026, Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV of the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts ruled on Suno's motion to dismiss in a class action brought by independent recording artists (1:25-cv-11739). The order describes the plaintiffs' allegations: that Suno downloaded their songs from YouTube, copied them to train its AI music model, and generated music that is the same or substantially similar to protected expressive elements of their songs. The court denied dismissal of the copyright claims - including a derivative-works claim under 17 U.S.C. section 106(2) and a DMCA anti-circumvention claim alleging Suno used a stream-ripping tool to bypass YouTube's technical measures - and dismissed only the Tennessee consumer-protection count.

Why it may matter to you

The order treats allegations that a model was trained on copied songs, and that its outputs mirror them, as enough to keep copyright claims alive past the pleading stage - without requiring the plaintiffs to identify each allegedly infringing output up front.

What is not yet known

A motion-to-dismiss ruling assumes the complaint's allegations are true; it decides nothing about whether Suno actually did these things. The case continues toward discovery.