Photo Credit: David Veksler
Just months after being filed, two copyright infringement lawsuits against Suno – one submitted by The American Dollar, another by Jamendo – have abruptly ended.
Both the Queens-based duo and Winamp’s Jamendo recently moved to voluntarily toss their separate Suno complaints; the former suit has been dropped with prejudice (meaning it cannot be refiled), and the latter has been axed without prejudice.
Absent from the concise notices is any dismissal explanation whatsoever. However, it was only in June that The American Dollar, litigating as Poseidon Wave Media, fired off an amended action; closer to July’s conclusion, Jamendo took aim at Suno in an amended complaint of its own.
The American Dollar’s retooled suit bolstered a few of the “Twelve Days Awake” act’s arguments en route to doubling down on the initial iteration’s central allegations: Suno allegedly ingested 236 protected recordings and compositions to train its generative models, with the resulting avalanche of outputs allegedly “devaluing and substituting” actual music.
On the devaluation and substitution front, that Suno recently disclosed download limits and other policy changes is worth keeping in mind – as is its growing list of licensing deals and the ongoing artist-led class actions it’s fending off.
The older of the complaints is still adding class members; eligible artists, producers, and songwriters can join, with professionals including but not limited to Benn Jordan, Venus Theory, and Kuddie Fresh aboard at present.
While the dismissal with prejudice seemingly precludes The American Dollar from joining this class action, the bigger takeaway is that Suno, recent policy overhaul aside, remains very much embroiled in high-stakes infringement litigation.
But it’s unclear precisely what prompted the duo and Jamendo to end the legal battles, which were seemingly proceeding as planned. DMN reached out to The American Dollar, Jamendo, Winamp, and Suno alike for comment, but the tight-lipped (now-former) litigants didn’t respond in time for publishing.
One more angle that bears highlighting: Following GEMA’s legal win against Suno in Germany, the possibility of building a successful case in Europe may have factored into the dismissal decision for Jamendo (which is headquartered in Luxembourg) and its Brussels-based Winamp parent.
A closing update on where a few other gen AI complaints stand: Universal Music, Sony Music, and Suno on Wednesday participated in a discovery-focused status conference. Per a subsequent docket entry, “[t]he parties have agreed to confer further.”
Meanwhile, Sony Music’s latest Udio suit appears to be in full swing, with an amended summons having been issued earlier this month. Finally, separate class actions than those mentioned above are active against Suno and Udio as well, though the case involving the latter was in early August transferred from Illinois to New York.