Jason Isbell, a country artist, David Lowery, frontman of Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven, Eduardo “Ed” Calle, a jazz saxophonist, and Guy Forsyth, a blues singer-songwriter, have filed a proposed class action against Suno.
The complaint centers on alleged unauthorized use of musicians’ identities, including publicity rights and, in Illinois, biometric information. Earlier lawsuits against Suno focused on alleged copyright infringement.
Alleged misuse of names and voices
The plaintiffs claim Suno lets users enter a musician’s name as “a retrieval key.” That input, they allege, generates a “musician-based output” associated with the named artist.
They also allege that Suno’s guardrails against this use can be bypassed, allowing users to “generate identity-evocative output on command.”
The filing further states that Suno collected, captured, stored or used voiceprints or vocal identifiers from certain sound recordings without the informed written consent required under Illinois law.
Legal claims and proposed subclasses
The complaint specifies that the publicity and identity allegations are not copyright matters and do not concern ownership of a genre.
“The claim is narrower and older than that: no one may commercially exploit another’s right of publicity in their name and identity.”
The plaintiffs argue that the ability to generate output tied to particular musicians increases the “usefulness, appeal, and commercial value” of Suno’s product. They also contend that a musician does not need to “be a superstar to have their identity appropriated.”
The proposed class action seeks to establish subclasses covering:
- musicians “whose names are or have been accepted as prompts in Suno”
- an Illinois subclass for musicians whose voiceprints or vocal identifiers were allegedly used without required consent
