Elvis Presley’s music catalog rights holders filed a new lawsuit against AI music generator Suno on Friday, accusing the company of storing and exploiting material tied to Presley’s identity without permission. The complaint names songs including “All Shook Up,” “Don’t Be Cruel” and “Can’t Help Falling in Love,” and leans heavily on Tennessee’s ELVIS Act, a 2024 law meant to shield performers from unauthorized AI voice cloning.
According to Billboard, the case was filed Friday, November 6, by Elvis Presley Enterprises and levels copyright accusations against Suno that echo claims the same rights holders brought against another AI company weeks earlier. Lead counsel Richard Busch did not mince words in the filing, writing that “all of the humanity, history, despair, and triumph that constitutes Elvis’ identity was stolen and is stored on servers and harnessed by Suno to make massive amounts of money,” per Billboard.
What the Lawsuit Alleges
The complaint also names “A Little Less Conversation” and “Return to Sender” among the songs at the center of the dispute, according to Billboard. Busch, the plaintiffs’ lead counsel, said the group is suing for copyright infringement and described the songs as among the most iconic ever written, according to WREG. Attorneys in the case are demanding a trial by jury, WREG reports.
The lawsuit specifically invokes Tennessee’s Ensuring Likeness Voice and Image Security Act, arguing that Suno’s alleged use of Presley’s identity and material is exactly the kind of conduct the 2024 law was designed to stop, per WREG. Per Variety, the complaint alleges that Suno violated the ELVIS Act by allowing users to generate tracks mirroring Presley’s voice without authorization.
Suno Responds to the Allegations
Suno has pushed back on the claims, telling Variety that it does not allow prompts invoking specific artists’ names or songs and that it works with third-party providers to screen uploaded audio files and lyrics for potential misuse. The company’s statement did not address the Presley lawsuit’s specific allegations in detail, but it echoes language Suno has used in response to other recent suits, per the same outlet.
A Second Front: The Anthropic Case
The Suno filing follows a separate lawsuit the same Presley rights-owning group brought against AI company Anthropic in October, alleging the company used some of Presley’s most famous works to train its Claude AI agent without permission, according to WREG. That case, filed in federal court in the Northern District of California, claims the group collectively owns or controls rights to 274 musical compositions recorded by Presley, according to the filed complaint hosted by WREG.com.
That complaint sought up to $41.1 million in statutory copyright damages for alleged willful infringement of those 274 works, per the filed complaint. Separately, the total demand was about $48.6 million, a different figure from the $41.1 million statutory damages request stated elsewhere in the complaint. The Anthropic complaint’s title also identifies claims for direct copyright infringement, circumvention of protection measures, and removal or alteration of copyright management information, though these remain allegations rather than court findings.
Part of a Broader Legal Wave
The Presley cases are landing amid what NBC News describes as a larger wave of lawsuits against Anthropic and other AI companies over alleged unauthorized use of copyrighted music. In January, Universal Music, Concord Music Group and ABKCO Music expanded their own lawsuit against Anthropic over alleged infringement of copyrighted song lyrics, according to the outlet.
Suno in particular has drawn a string of legal challenges. Billboard notes that the same attorneys behind the Presley case filed a separate suit against Suno on behalf of Eight Mile Style, the publisher that owns much of Eminem’s catalog, also filed Nov. 6. Variety reports that Suno already faces lawsuits from independent music publisher Round Hill Music and major labels Universal Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment, while Warner Music Group settled its case against the company last year.
Music publisher Reservoir also filed federal lawsuits against both Suno and Anthropic on October 21, alleging the companies effectively used its copyrighted songs to train their AI models without consent, according to Billboard. Separately, musician Jason Isbell and other artists filed their own lawsuit against Suno centered on alleged violations of right-of-publicity laws, according to Yahoo Entertainment. A Billboard report characterizes the broader legal landscape as a flood of lawsuits from authors, visual artists, movie studios and record labels challenging how AI companies trained their models on existing creative works.
