Rights holders for Elvis Presley and Eight Mile Style, the publisher of major Eminem works, have filed separate lawsuits accusing Suno of generating unauthorized imitations of the artists’ music. The Presley complaint, filed on November 6, 2026, in the Northern District of California, combines voice and likeness claims with copyright allegations. Eight Mile Style’s suit alleges unauthorized lyrical and musical imitation, according to reporting by The Verge and Engadget.
Suno says it prohibits unauthorized use of artists’ work, blocks prompts naming specific artists or songs, and screens uploaded audio and lyrics through third-party providers.
The central issue extends beyond whether users can type an artist’s name into a prompt. The complaints challenge what Suno allegedly copied, what its systems can produce, and whether those outputs misuse a recognizable voice or protected music. Those are related questions, but they involve different rights and evidence. The allegations have not been adjudicated.
What the Two Lawsuits Allege
The Presley case includes plaintiffs asserting rights in Elvis Presley’s identity alongside owners and controllers of musical compositions. According to Copyright Now’s detailed account of the complaint, they allege that Suno copied 859 compositions to train its models without authorization.
That figure needs context: it covers the plaintiffs’ claimed repertoire, including Presley-associated songs such as All Shook Up and Can’t Help Falling in Love, plus works associated with other artists. It is not a count of 859 Elvis recordings.
The complaint also identifies output examples that allegedly reproduce songs, imitate Presley’s voice, or do both. Copyright Now describes five examples claimed to involve both his likeness and copyrighted works, alongside additional examples grouped by likeness or composition claims.
The distinction matters. An allegedly recognizable synthetic voice raises an identity-rights question. Allegedly copied lyrics or music raise a copyright question. One generated track could prompt both claims, but proving one would not automatically resolve the other.
Eight Mile Style’s suit focuses on alleged imitation involving Eminem’s lyrics and music. Engadget reports that both lawsuits include generated-song examples the plaintiffs say support their claims. The opened reporting does not provide Eight Mile Style’s full complaint, specific legal counts or damages demand, so the Presley case offers the firmer basis for a detailed legal breakdown.
The Presley Complaint Has Five Distinct Counts
The Presley complaint reaches beyond a dispute over AI training data. Copyright Now identifies five counts, each targeting a different alleged action:
| Claim | What the plaintiffs allege |
|---|---|
| Tennessee ELVIS Act | Unauthorized use and public availability of Presley’s voice and likeness, plus provision of technology covered by the statute. |
| Tennessee common-law right of publicity | Unauthorized exploitation of Presley’s identity. |
| Direct copyright infringement | Unauthorized copying of the plaintiffs’ compositions, including for model training, and allegedly infringing outputs. |
| DMCA anti-circumvention, Section 1201 | Bypassing technological measures controlling access to the works. |
| DMCA copyright-management information, Section 1202 | Removing or altering information associated with ownership or identification of copyrighted works. |
The access-related allegations include automated scraping that allegedly bypassed login requirements, subscription gates and anti-bot defenses. The complaint also alleges use of stream-ripping tools to circumvent YouTube’s access controls. Those claims concern how material was obtained, separately from whether a generated song resembles a protected work.
For the copyright count, the plaintiffs seek actual damages and profits or statutory damages of up to $150,000 per work, which the complaint calculates as $128.85 million across 859 works. It also requests up to $2.1475 million under the anti-circumvention count and $21.475 million under the copyright-management-information count.
The ELVIS Act and publicity counts each assert damages and profits believed to exceed $50 million, alongside other requested remedies. These figures are demands and statutory ceilings cited by the plaintiffs, not court-assessed losses. I would not add them into a predicted payout: the available account supplies no basis for forecasting either liability or a combined award. Copyright Now documents the counts and requested relief.
Why the ELVIS Act Claim Matters
Tennessee’s Ensuring Likeness, Voice, and Image Security Act took effect on July 1, 2024. As described in Copyright Now’s account, its definition of voice includes sound readily identifiable with a particular individual, including a simulation.
That makes the alleged synthetic nature of the Presley examples important. The plaintiffs say these are unlicensed simulations, not recordings of Presley actually singing. Their voice claim therefore does not depend solely on establishing that an output contains a copied recording.
The complaint invokes provisions addressing unauthorized commercial use, making an unauthorized voice or likeness available to the public, and providing technology whose primary purpose or function is producing a particular identifiable person’s voice or likeness.
That last provision deserves attention. It points to a question about the technology’s purpose or function, beyond whether an isolated output sounds familiar. Applying it to a general-purpose music generator will require examining the statutory conditions and the facts alleged against Suno.
My view is that this is the case’s most consequential design question: how should a service capable of producing many kinds of music control recognizable identity imitation? The complaint raises that issue, but it does not settle how the law applies to Suno’s system. The statutory background and pleaded provisions are detailed here.
Suno’s Filters Address Inputs, but the Claims Reach Outputs
Suno spokesperson Cat McCormack told The Verge that the service is intended to help people create original music. On prompt restrictions, she said:
“we do not allow prompts for specific artists’ names and songs”
McCormack also said Suno works with third-party providers to screen uploaded audio files and lyrics for potential misuse and continues strengthening its safeguards. These are Suno’s descriptions of its controls, not independently verified measurements of their effectiveness.
The practical distinction is between three stages:
- Training: What material entered the model, and under what authorization?
- User input: What prompts, lyrics and audio uploads does the service accept?
- Generated output: What does the system produce or make available?
Frequently Asked Questions
3 questions
1Are Elvis Presley and Eminem Personally Suing Suno?
The plaintiffs are rights holders. The Presley case includes entities and parties asserting identity and composition rights; Eight Mile Style brought the Eminem-related suit.
