Jason Isbell, David Lowery, & More Sue Suno For Violating Rights Of Publicity

Everyone hates Suno, except Mary J. Blige for some reason. Jason Isbell, David Lowery, and more musicians are now suing the AI music platform.The legal complaint was filed on Monday (Aug. 31). The class action lawsuit emphasizes that its claims don't depend on copyright infringement, but that Sono's name-indexing and style-replication exploits artists' names and identifiable traits for profit."Suno's system recognizes 'Jason Isbell' as far more than a mere text string; it is a retrieval key for a set of performer-specific representations that it can use to generate a response associated with that musician," the lawsuit reads. "From a name prompt alone, a user receives a multi-modal experience evoking that named musician. This includes access to a generated song like one the named musician might create, a description of the musician’s attributes and a related image. This is true for countless other musicians."The complaint provided an example, saying that typing Isbell's name into Suno "produced an Americana song called 'Paper Bell,' imitating Isbell's characteristic clear male vocals and country twang."Suno has previously asserted that its goal is to "help people create something new, not imitate someone else's work." The company says it integrates filters that prevent users from prompting the model with specific artist names. The lawsuit points out that there are loopholes around the filters, such as putting spaces between letters of an artist's name. For instance, the suit says, typing in "m i c h a e l j a c k s o n" resulted in a pop song called "Glovebox Moonwalk," paired with an image of Michael Jackson's white glove.Along with Isbell and Lowery, the plaintiffs are blues singer-songwriter Guy Forsyth and jazz saxaphonist Eduardo Calle. They also allege Suno is violating their rights of publicity under several state statutes, including New York, California, and Tennessee, which protect an individual's ownership over their name, image, and likeness. The case seeks unspecified financial damages for the proposed class of artist plaintiffs, which it says could number in the "millions." Suno is projected to make $1 billion by 2028.