Round Hill Music has filed separate copyright infringement lawsuits against AI music generator Suno and Claude developer Anthropic, alleging that the companies used protected songs without permission to train their artificial intelligence systems. The music company says the litigation could eventually encompass thousands of works and produce damages exceeding $1 billion.
The complaints, filed Monday, initially identify more than 500 songs that Round Hill claims were used unlawfully. The cited works include the Goo Goo Dolls’ “Iris,” Bonnie Tyler’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart” and James Brown’s “I Got You (I Feel Good).” Round Hill said the cases could be broadened to cover additional songs as the litigation proceeds.
Round Hill is seeking to enforce rights in its music catalog and establish that AI developers cannot ingest copyrighted compositions without authorization or payment. Richard Busch, the music litigator representing the company, accused Suno in the complaint of building its business through infringement on an unprecedented scale.
Round Hill CEO Josh Gruss said the company does not oppose AI technology itself but objects to businesses using creative works without compensating their owners. He described licensing as a mechanism for protecting the property of songwriters and other rights holders rather than a barrier to technological development.
“Licensing isn’t an obstacle to innovation,” Gruss said.
Gruss also indicated that Round Hill intends to take the cases to trial and would not accept an outcome that leaves artists and songwriters without what the company considers appropriate compensation. Suno and Anthropic did not immediately comment on the filings.
The lawsuits place two different kinds of AI products into the same copyright dispute. Suno offers tools that generate complete songs in response to user prompts, while Anthropic develops general-purpose language models and operates the Claude chatbot. Despite those differences, Round Hill alleges that both companies used copyrighted music as training material without obtaining the required licenses.
The cases join a widening group of legal challenges over the data used to build generative AI systems. Authors, news organizations, visual artists, entertainment companies and music rights holders have sued model developers, arguing that copying protected material into training datasets violates their exclusive rights. AI companies have generally maintained that training produces new, transformative systems and can qualify as fair use under US copyright law.
Courts are still determining how established copyright doctrines apply to model training, generated outputs and the retention of protected material inside AI systems. The outcomes could shape whether developers must negotiate large-scale licenses before training models and how damages should be calculated when datasets contain substantial numbers of copyrighted works.
Suno was already defending litigation brought in 2024 by the three major recording companies: Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group. Universal and Sony remain in litigation with the startup, while Warner later settled its case and reached a licensing agreement with Suno. That arrangement includes plans for a new model built with licensed music and limits on the number of tracks users may download. Music Business Worldwide reported that Warner also received an equity stake in Suno as part of the agreement.
BMG has since announced its own global licensing arrangement with Suno and plans to participate in the development of licensed models. Those deals illustrate a divide within the music business between rights holders pursuing courtroom judgments and those seeking commercial agreements with generative music platforms.
Warner CEO Robert Kyncl has argued that services with an established audience should be brought into a licensed system when they are willing to change their practices. Round Hill is taking a more confrontational route, maintaining that AI businesses must answer for alleged past infringement rather than relying only on future licensing commitments.
The potential scale of the Round Hill cases will depend partly on whether the company adds more works to its complaints and whether a court accepts its underlying infringement theory. Its reference to more than $1 billion reflects a possible expanded catalog and damages calculation, not an award already made or a determination that either defendant is liable.
Sources: AI copyright lawsuit, Anthropic, AI copyright lawsuit