Suno, Anthropic Face $1B Copyright Lawsuits From Round Hill Music Over AI Training

Round Hill Music filed two copyright lawsuits on Monday (Aug. 17) against AI companies Suno and Anthropic, alleging they illegally used more than 500 of its songs, including hits like "Iris" by the Goo Goo Dolls and "Total Eclipse of the Heart" by Bonnie Tyler, to train their AI models, with damages that could exceed $1 billion. Round Hill CEO Josh Gruss said the company intends to take the cases to trial and will not accept a settlement that leaves songwriters and artists deprived of compensation. The lawsuits add to existing legal battles, as Suno faces similar suits from Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group, and Sony Music Entertainment, while Anthropic has faced numerous copyright claims across industries.

Suno, Anthropic Face $1B Copyright Lawsuits From Round Hill Music Over AI Training As Suno reaches settlements with the music industry, Round Hill says it plans to fight: "We intend to take these cases to trial." Trending on Billboard Suno and Anthropic are facing lawsuits from Round Hill Music over accusations that the AI labs infringed tens of thousands of songs to train their models — and might owe more than $1 billion in damages. The cases, filed Monday Aug. 17 , are the latest to accuse AI firms of stealing copyrighted content en masse to train their models to spit out new works. Suno has been sued by all three major music companies, and Anthropic, the company behind Claude, has faced numerous such lawsuits across industries. In both cases, Round Hill says the AI firms illegally used more than 500 of its songs, including “Iris” by the Goo Goo Dolls, “Total Eclipse of the Heart” by Bonnie Tyler and “I Got You I Feel Good ” by James Brown. But it says the cases could later be expanded to thousands more songs, with damages that could “conceivably exceed $1 billion.” “ Round Hill brings this action to enforce its exclusive rights against defendant Suno, who has built its entire business model on copyright infringement at a scale never seen before,” writes Richard Busch , a veteran music litigator representing the music company in the two cases. AI technology uses millions of existing works to “train” models how to create new ones. Book authors, newspapers, visual artists, movie studios and record labels have all sued AI labs over the process, claiming it infringes their copyrights. AI companies say they’ve transformed all those works into something new that’s a form of legal fair use . Billions in potential damages and licenses turn on that unresolved legal battle. In a statement, Round Hill CEO Josh Gruss stressed that the company is “not against artificial intelligence” but “against the idea that you can build a business worth billions on top of other people’s creative work and pay the creators nothing.” “Licensing isn’t an obstacle to innovation — it is there to protect the legal owners of the raw material, their property,” Gruss said. “As an independent music company, we have the freedom and obligation to say that plainly and to act on it.” Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment all brought a similar lawsuit against Suno in 2024. UMG and Sony are continuing to litigate that case, but Warner reached a settlement https://www.billboard.com/pro/suno-warner-music-sign-ai-licensing-deal-settle-lawsuit/ in November to license its catalog to the company. In his statement on Monday, Gruss suggested that such a settlement was not likely in the new lawsuits: “We intend to take these cases to trial and to hold these companies accountable, and we will not accept a resolution that leaves songwriters and artists deprived of their rightful share of compensation.” Neither Suno nor Anthropic immediately returned requests for comment on Monday.