Jason Isbell Leads New Class Action Lawsuit Against Suno AI
A new class-action lawsuit is being brought against the leading company for consumer-level AI music generation, Suno. While pretty much every major and independent label has an open and active lawsuit pending against Suno for using the copyrighted material from their catalogs without consent or compensation, the one being led by Americana songwriter Jason Isbell is slightly different. It focuses on how the software is using the names of artists to generate its music, thus exploiting the identities of musicians.
There’s also a unique angle in how they’re approaching this lawsuit that will have fans of Star Trek smirking.
Along with Jason Isbell, Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven frontman David Lowery, Texas blues musician Guy Forsyth, and Florida-based saxophonist Eduardo Calle are all part of the class-action lawsuit that cites Star Trek villain The Borg in its legal briefs.
“A musician’s identity is their property, but Suno took it without consent,” writes attorney Alan D. Rose for the plaintiffs. “This lawsuit is how these musicians resist the premise that resistance is futile.”
The lawsuit was filed on Monday, August 31st in the U.S.District Court in Massachusetts. Central to the lawsuit is how Suno subscribers use the specific names of artists or their tracks in prompts to generate songs or albums. The lawsuit claims this is tantamount to identity theft. “It encoded musicians’ identities into its AI model to create its commercial product without consent, and now exploits those identities by publicly using musicians’ names to Suno’s considerable commercial benefit,” the lawsuit states.
Having faced criticism previously for allowing users to mimic existing artists, Suno did implement some guardrails to prevent direct prompting to “make a song that sounds like Jason Isbell,” for example. But by asking the AI program to make “tone and phrasing like Jason Isbell,” or using an artist’s real name when they perform under a pseudonym are simple was to circumvent those rules.
“Many musicians sell their rights to specific recordings,” the lawsuits says. “However, the identity right belongs to the performer regardless of who owns any copyright in an underlying recording unless the identity right is separately licensed, typically for merchandise under an artist’s control. This lawsuit seeks to recover the value of those misappropriated identities and to stop their ongoing commercial exploitation.”
Suno is currently being sued by scores of labels, artists, rights organizations, and others, including Universal Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment. However, Warner Music Group settled with Suno, and is now developing a model in partnership with the label.
Jason Isbell has been a strong proponent of copyright and controlling media in his career, including refusing phones at many of his events, and aggressively policing posts with his music on social media.
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September 1, 2026 @ 5:44 pm
What a mess.
September 2, 2026 @ 8:38 am
Freak Scene
September 3, 2026 @ 6:04 pm
No love for Dinosaur Jr.?
September 4, 2026 @ 6:31 am
So fucked you can’t believe it.
September 1, 2026 @ 6:04 pm
Live Long and Prosper.
September 1, 2026 @ 7:17 pm
Rick Beato put out a rant video on the state of music in 2026. He says he speaks to a fair amount of songwriters working professionally in the music industry and they tell Rick they are using AI all the time to write songs. He said you would be hard pressed to find someone on or working for major labels who’s not using it now. The way he talks it sounds like boatloads of musicians and writers absolutely love it. So, are we really winning the battle here? I suspect a lot of the independents are at least using it for demos.
September 1, 2026 @ 7:44 pm
I would have to see the Rick Beato video. But that’s actually not what I’m hearing at all. In the pop/hip-hop world, maybe that’s the case. The primary way songwriters are using AI in country is the create demos to pitch to artists, so not actually in the writing process. In the folk/Americana/bluegrass space, it’s non-existent, and you would get severely stigmatized if people found you were using AI.
September 2, 2026 @ 4:04 am
Rick is specifically talking about the pop industry. We both know he doesn’t pay attention to the indie country scene. But regardless, he’s hearing this from actual writers and artists in music…that’s very concerning. And several roots music folks in the comments section on SCM are admitting they use AI for ideas and demos.
September 2, 2026 @ 7:08 pm
People are using it like crazy in Bluegrass. Newbies and Legends alike. I know first hand.
September 3, 2026 @ 5:00 am
really?!? that’s the last genre i would have thought…
September 4, 2026 @ 8:25 am
“really?!? that’s the last genre i would have thought… ”
It might actually be expected that they would try out AI as it can be reasoned that the Bluegrass scene might think that the grass is greener on that side…
September 1, 2026 @ 8:37 pm
It’s kind of in a “don’t ask, don’t tell” phase right now – but yes – it’s being used very heavily and will continue to. Not so much for actual writing, outside of maybe whoever writes Luke Bryan’s shit. The thing it’s being used most for, and I hate to admit I’m even doing it myself now – is the instant feedback.
It’s a lot different hearing yourself playing a song on a guitar while singing than hearing someone else play it to you. The misplaced words, phrases you thought you could force – that shit shows itself to you really quick. I would never use it in a real recording for release. It’s nowhere near good enough for that anyway – although I’m sure it will get there.
In the meantime there is a SHITLOAD of money to be made by lawyers, and they will get theirs.
I hate that AI exists – but it does. I also hated digital, and autotune, and photoshop, and protools…and copy/paste…. I never let myself get behind though.
September 1, 2026 @ 11:43 pm
This is a pretty mature and realistic POV
September 2, 2026 @ 5:13 am
I go to a songwriting workshop on a monthly basis to get real human feedback
September 2, 2026 @ 6:14 am
Are you incapable of recording yourself while playing and then listening to it play? I’m seriously failing to see what benefit AI has in this particular scenario.
September 2, 2026 @ 6:48 am
I think the idea is that when you write something and even record it, you could end up having an inherent bias in your own favor. And sometimes, feedback, even AI feedback is helpful.
I’m not saying professionals should do it. I think professionals should have enough people in their circle that they should be able to get legitimate human feedback.
But I can see the appeal of an amateur or aspiring songwriter utilizing tools that are out there. Again, not ideal, but as long as they are doing the writing and doing the recording themselves and using AI for feedback and maybe tweaks (“if you cut out this “the” the meter will flow better” or “this word may be a better rhyme”) come from AI, I think there are a lot greater sins.
September 2, 2026 @ 11:02 am
Hasn’t research shown a lot of these models are inherently programmed to placate the user? Are you really getting good feedback is the model is predisposed to “must frame in a nice tone or give positive feedback”?
To each their own when it comes to using this technology, but these LLM’s are not designed in such a way where if the end goal is to receive unbiased feedback on a song structure, melody, chord, etc. then LLM’s ain’t gonna do that a lot of the time.
September 2, 2026 @ 11:31 am
A fair question, Mike, and yes, that is an accurate criticism of it.
But, I can also say that I’ve used AI models to generate feedback on other types of creative writing and genuinely gotten some valuable feedback from it: never anything that would substantially change the writing, but I’ve gotten feedback that has told me “this phrasing is a bit clunky: perhaps try it this way and it may read a bit cleaner.”
Now, I understand that that particular example may not exactly be relevant to songwriting where you are trying to fit particular meters, but, all the same.
I can say this though: I’ve worked my songwriting through some AI models, had some success with making some tweaks, and then taken songs to a songwriting workshop I’m a member of and gotten real human feedback, and I think I’ve had pretty good success. And I understand that I’m not a professional songwriter or musician: almost certainly never will be. But I also have a decent enough creative mind that I can tell when a song has potential and when an idea just isn’t cutting it. I’ve scrapped ideas entirely because, even when using AI to try to make tweaks, it just isn’t coming together in a way I’d envisioned it.
I’m not talking about people who use AI to wholly create a song or lyrics from scratch. That’s bullshit. I’m not talking about using AI to create music and then put it out there as if it is human created. That’s bullshit.
I’m talking about AI to refine fully-formed ideas to polish off a couple of rough edges. I’m talking about using AI to, as matt mentioned below (or above depending on where this comment falls), add some additional instrumentation to see how it sounds with more than just the guitar that I’m able to play. As long as the finished product when it’s released is a human-made creation, I take no issue with the use of AI for certain aspects.
September 2, 2026 @ 8:28 am
If you want to hear an arrangement with 4 instruments, it’s probably a huge timesaver to record yourself once and have it add 3 instruments. That and (I have no idea if this is a thing) turning your recording of yourself into charts seem like two fairly harmless ways to use software when writing a song.
September 2, 2026 @ 1:55 pm
I don’t defend the use of it in the slightest. I don’t work for them, I don’t own stock, could care less if they go under tomorrow. This is exactly how I use it and what it does for me. Good? Bad? Fair? Whatever. I don’t consider fixing time in pro-tools or correcting pitch with melodyne to be cool or fair – it gets done on every recording you hear.
I still write all my lyrics sitting in Starbucks or similar space – same way I’ve done since I started writing songs in 1983. Then I go home and work the song out on guitar or piano, dialing in my comp and melody, same as I’ve done my whole life.
Then I record myself playing the song on my phone. Just me singing and playing either guitar or piano. I then upload that to suno. I don’t talk (prompt) to suno and it doesn’t talk to me. At the very most I add a sentence to direct genre. The feedback I get is my own – not from suno. Another commenter seemed to think we are having a conversation and I’m being appeased like in Chat GPT or something – doesn’t work that way. Suno does not talk to you. It just generates “recordings”
I have it generate a bunch of versions of the song – 4 or 5 usually. Then I just sit and listen to them over and over without the distraction of playing at the same time, or being critical of my voice or performance. I’m listening to someone else play my song so I can focus only on the song.
This gives me several things:
For one – it often makes some really cool mistakes that after a few listens I realize – yea – that sounds great, I’m going to use something like that. It’s kind of an instant version of the development that happens to your songs when you play them for years and years. Odd unexpected phrasing, starting on an unexpected beat (delay) etc. Except now you get that before you record the song and press 5,000 copies (not that, that happens anymore).
The other big thing it does for me is really put my lyrics in my face in a way I don’t get listening to myself sing them. There are many times as a songwriter where you force shit to fit where you want it. You want to really know if you succeeded in that? Listen to someone else sing it at you…
I’ve run quite a bit of even my old catalog through – about 250 songs so far. I’ve found huge screw ups in a few songs that I have recorded and played live hundreds of times. Just shit like “person” – referring to someone in 1st person in one part of the song, 2nd person later. Or referring to house as mine then later referring to it as hers or whatever. Small things like that I have sung hundreds and hundreds of times and somehow missed – even though I really look for that stuff as I’m writing.
Also just weird rhymes that felt fine at the time, over pretentious words that should have never been used, the occasional sexism at a level I would never consciously use… I could go on all day at all the little shit that you REALLY HEAR when someone else is singing it at you and all you’re listening to is the song.
Someone mentioned getting together with people for that – sure. I’ve got thousands of hours of that under my belt. Mostly people thinking about what song they are going to play next more than what is going on in yours. Those are fun but not the same.
Again – I don’t defend it. I think we should all be gathering our band around one mic in a room and recording to 2-track tape or wax cylinder. THAT was the shit! I’m not even saying that sarcastically – I LOVE those old recordings. They are by far my favorite. But that’s not the world I live in.
I started out recording to tape, hated every bit of tech that came out along the way – but always knew to jump in with both feet anyway. Like I already said: I hate that AI exists, but it does, and it isn’t going anywhere. At least 90% of its haters will be using it daily within a year or so. That’s life.
September 3, 2026 @ 7:38 am
Great description of your use of it, I hear you on it’s benefits for you but I disagree on some fundamental levels. Who cares if your songs have problems? Townes’ Mr Mudd and Mr Gold makes no sense when its played out, still a masterpiece of a song. Speaking for myself and the artists i’m around, we will not be using it daily within a year. I have zero problem with not being commercially successful and a huge problem with having AI influenced music.
September 2, 2026 @ 12:00 pm
In other news, condemned carpenter helps build his own guillotine
September 2, 2026 @ 2:09 pm
Spot on. The fact that people who will eventually lose their jobs to the technology, shows just how lazy and parasitic most humans are. The “I only use it for…” argument is weak and so very transparent.
September 3, 2026 @ 4:16 am
It seems it. But unless we are trying to make a living in the same space, perhaps we should judge a bit less? There’s potentially a fear from competition that maybe pushes people to do things they are not super happy about just to stay in business.
September 3, 2026 @ 6:37 am
In my industry, its built into our database and software. You can’t really “not” use it. Plus, everyone else is using it and is more efficient, so if you opt out, you’ll soon be out of a job. All of this is a very temporary and transient environment, as people are needed in the very short-term to work alongside AI as the transition happens. In less than five years, most of this will require no people at all.
September 3, 2026 @ 9:01 am
Rick Beato surveys only a small part of the current musical landscape; he stucks deeply in a relatively little mainstream pop/rock bubble. He completely lacks expertise in many popular genres, such as country or Latin music. That in itself isn’t a problem. What I find problematic about Beato’s commentaries are his generalizations like referring to “music today” as it is all current music. He knows how to generate clicks with punchy headlines, but the actual substance of what he has to say is often rather thin.
September 2, 2026 @ 3:16 am
Something that is not said nearly enough on here, but good for Jason Isbell.
*turns off notifications*
September 2, 2026 @ 4:01 am
To my ears rap and hip hop music is artficial even before the dawn of AI , it only makes making artficial music a bit easier.
September 2, 2026 @ 5:45 am
As to rap, I like June Carter’s “The Heel” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FjTolHjfB8
In the ’80’s I liked the rapper Heavy D, then decades passed until the next rapper that interested me, Teezo Touchdown.
Does either June Carter, Heavy D, or Teezo Touchdown surpass Lorne Greene and his “Ringo”? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CT1N_-3vsUM
September 2, 2026 @ 6:42 am
Calling “The Heel” rap is an insult to rap and an insult to “The Heel.” Spoken word and rhythmic traditions aren’t the same as hip-hip just because they don’t hold strong melody. Sorry, this is a pet peeve of mine.
September 2, 2026 @ 2:27 pm
I plead 100% guilty to being deaf, or tone deaf, or culture deaf, or oblivious to rhythm, as to the difference between Lorne Greene’s “Ringo” and Teezo Touchdown’s “The Neighborhood”
Both are ime storytelling w/o melody.
Maybe June Carter’s estate could work a sample of Jr. Walker’s wailing saxophone into “The Heel” – would that make it hip-hop?
This isn’t a hill I’m gonna die on, or even put up any more resistance 🙂
Waving the white flag!
September 4, 2026 @ 3:17 pm
Actually, “The Heel” was first done by Eartha Kitt in 1955.
Of course, Eartha actually sang it.
September 2, 2026 @ 4:03 am
““whenever you see stupid or terrible things justified by the possibility of future benefits, you should be on the lookout for consequentialist ethics” such as Effective Altruism.”
– Ted Gioia (musician, writer, and more)
Stanford’s Secret Course on How to Rule the World
https://www.honest-broker.com/p/stanfords-secret-course-on-how-to
September 2, 2026 @ 5:23 am
Honestly this is kind of a self own. Suno absolutely blocks you from using famous artists or bands names. If his name isnt blocked….well… maybe he should level up his game a bit and become a better musician. Then Suno might block prompts with his name. Or just be a big baby and sue because he doesn’t understand how AI synthesizes and processes information. All these anti ai people sound like every other complainer in history whos industry was replace by a better technology. Level up or shut up.
September 2, 2026 @ 6:40 am
What it says in the lawsuit is the metadata for songs that Suno has scraped from the internet illegally still hold the signatures of specific artists, and like it says in the article, you can get around the name filters with very simple work arounds.
September 2, 2026 @ 10:58 am
Cool take, bro…..
Peter Thiel isn’t gonna let you live in his bunker just because you were nice to him on the internet.
September 2, 2026 @ 11:02 am
“well… maybe he should level up his game a bit and become a better musician.”
Well, there is that …
September 2, 2026 @ 2:14 pm
What a clown take, but then most people who use AI to be creative are clowns, as are the supporters of the technology. Isbell doesn’t need to level up, he’s a brilliant guitar player, songwriter, and vocalist. I’m no fan of the guy as a person, but his talent is undeniable, and he certainly has a right to protect his music and his musical identity.
September 2, 2026 @ 6:34 am
If Marvin Gaye’s estate could win over the Blurred Lines song, then Isbell and others should win this case over AI.
September 2, 2026 @ 7:02 am
While both cases involve copyright infringement, they’re not very comparable here. The closer parallel would be like the Anthropic litigation and similar lawsuits (that have so far sort of split the baby, finding the building of the databases to constitute infringement, but the use thereof to be considered fair use)
September 2, 2026 @ 7:48 am
While both cases involve copyright infringement, they’re not very comparable here. The closer parallel would be like the Anthropic litigation and similar lawsuits (that have so far sort of split the baby, finding the building of the databases to constitute infringement, but the use thereof to be considered fair use)
September 2, 2026 @ 12:51 pm
Copycats is a part of the music industry. AI is just a natural technological step further.
Nobody sued ol’ Merle for being the sonically spitting image of Lefty Frizzell and Wynn Stewart back then. Hell, even Lefty’s mom congratulated Lefty on having a hit song again, but it was Merle whom she had heard.
This AI craze will cool off.
September 2, 2026 @ 1:35 pm
I would differentiate one artist “aping” another vs. a tech company backed by venture capitalists that just digested the internet, books, movies, and songs while never compensating the people behind that content while stealing it. And then turning around and saying “well, we actually are valued at like $1 Trillion dollars”.
This is the sad thing about our political and justice system in the U.S. in 2026. These AI/Tech companies (Suno included) ripped off all these people, but will only “pay” for it legally or financially after they are so valuable that the legal fines are a rounding error.
It’s like the Meta settlement from a week or two ago. $17 billion looks like a massive number, but then you realize that is essentially 1 quarter of profits for Meta the company. It dings them, but despite the fact they were found to have designed their product to addict and in some cases kill people, the “penalty” us either a slap on the wrist or a light spanking.
The same is true of these AI companies. Good on Isbell and the other artists joining this lawsuit, but in reality these tech companies won’t even blink when they write the eventual check coming the artists (and lawyers) way.
September 3, 2026 @ 6:31 am
“This AI craze will cool off.”
Doubtful, and you won’t even know one way or the other. You already can’t, and certainly in the future, won’t be able to tell what is real and what is AI-generated. That goes for every shred of media you will consume.
September 3, 2026 @ 6:35 am
Yeah, somehow saying “This AI craze will cool off” scares me even more than when one of the CEOs of the tech companies warns us what they’re building will be an existential threat to humanity.
September 3, 2026 @ 6:41 am
“will be an existential threat to humanity.”
Too late.
“There are those who still think they are holding the pass against a revolution that may be coming up the road. But they are gazing in the wrong direction. The revolution is behind them. It went by in the Night of Depression, singing songs to freedom.”
Garet Garrett
September 3, 2026 @ 7:46 am
Well, the tech CEO’s also have a strong financial incentive to fearmonger as well. The more they hype up this technology as “dangerous and scary”, the more investors (who they desperately need because none of these companies are cash flow positive) fork over cash due to fear they will miss out on some revolutionary technology.
AI is absolutely going to lead to job losses. It already has – though much of the tech layoffs has to do with tightening capital markets, pandemic era over hiring, offshoring, and a sluggish economy everywhere BUT the AI sector. But customer service reps? Gone. Massive HR departments? Downsized. Coders? Downsized.
But I also would strongly caution against the idea that what OpenAI and Anthropic (and others) is an existential threat to humanity. Elon has been saying crap for years and never delivers. He’s a ketamine addict whose brain is rotted from being on Twitter all day and night. Sam Altman is a grifter and a conman. Same for Dario (Anthropic).
When it comes to art, I think inevitably AI is going to be used in song development. It already is. Demo singers are gone. But I also don’t see fully AI-generated content wiping out the marketplace. People overwhelmingly hate this technology and I don’t see that changing considering the generation most open to it (Boomers) are dying off, while the generations most opposed to it (Gen Z, Millennials) are the target audience for most media.
As I have said many times here, certain genres like pop and EDM are screwed when it comes to AI. Other genres will have a much, much tougher time accepting it (if ever).
September 2, 2026 @ 5:37 pm
We are in the endgame.
September 3, 2026 @ 6:33 am
Yes. The question is how many people will actually exist in the techno-surveillance prison?
September 3, 2026 @ 11:27 am
A lot of useful idiots are about to be culled.
I will enjoy telling them, “I told you so” in the gulag.
September 3, 2026 @ 11:31 am
A lot of all types of people are about to be culled. Hell, a lot already have.
September 4, 2026 @ 3:31 pm
“Any state, any entity, any ideology that fails to recognize the worth, the dignity, the rights of man… that state is obsolete.”
Rod Serling, “Twilight Zone” episode “The Obsolete Man”.
Broadcast June 1, 1961.
September 2, 2026 @ 11:14 pm
I can not sing or play an instrument and can only write lyrics. One thing I like about writing lyrics is that it’s sometimes like a search for words or images or analogies to use to sort of “translate” a certain feeling or picture into words. This feeling or picture can be very clear, or very hard to pinpoint, or complicated, or hard to even notice and feel, etc.
The search for words or analogies is part of the fun for me, and I can sometimes feel the exact moment where the words convey something crucial in all of this when merely reading the lyrics back and noticing some sensation in my body or some emotion or something like that. This is all part of why I like thinking about, and writing, song lyrics and why I don’t intend to use AI in this all.
One of my favorite songs by Vincent Neil Emerson is “High On Gettin’ By” which includes one of my favorite lines: “Like a bird caught in a store I’ve been looking for the door”. This line might be an example of words that convey something hard to describe or pinpoint, but when hearing it somehow resonates with something.
September 4, 2026 @ 8:07 am
What you do is identify a comparable song and then ask AI to generate a comma delimited list of descriptors for that song. Then use the list as input for the Styles field.
The SCM ‘Dewey Decimal’ system would be helpful with this. You could search up by category and find possible comps.
No need to be lazy and just use an artist name.
Lyrics are the soul of the song. I personally hate to hear well crafted lyrics let down by pedestrian music. Suno prevents that. It does fail of course–gets off track, overbakes, trends toward schlockiness, etc. But it gets you 80% of the way there if you work at it. And it is a surprisingly good reflection of what you are doing. That feedback is very informative, as mentioned above. Didn’t like the last version? Tweak the lyrics, adjust the styles, weirdness, style influence and create again. Conversely, generated something unexpectedly good? Run with it!
I’m going to patch a wall tomorrow. I’m going to use a framing nailer to put up the studs. Prefer a hammer and nails? Go for it. Screws and screwdriver? Selah.
September 4, 2026 @ 2:46 pm
I’m pretty sure Mickey Newbury didn’t need that bullshit to write his songs.
September 4, 2026 @ 2:24 pm
Personally I won’t touch AI with a ten foot pole. I spent the years learning to write and play folk, country and gospel music the old school way. The closest I get to AI is using a rhyming dictionary. I’m proud to say my 13 year old daughter is doing art the same way, lately she started getting into sewing. I’ve seen ancient metal castings that I would be hard pressed to create with modern tools. Fuck AI, and fuck the evil sociopathic shitbags like Sam Altman, Fuckersburg and the ultimate bitch Edong Munch
September 4, 2026 @ 11:49 pm
I watched a lot of youtube DIY videos a while back and came across a youtube channel by a young British lady who renovated an old barn.
But she also makes dresses, makes art by using an old-skool type writer, bakes pies, makes lemonade, has made a green house from scrap materials, has restored old rusted tools, has turned an old car into a camper van, rescues the occasional young bird that falls through the roof behind the isolation material of the barn roof, etc.
https://www.youtube.com/@Nelferch/videos
September 5, 2026 @ 8:09 am
Semi related, Zach Bryan has a new song hes been playing in concert for the pat week or so “Robot killed the working man”
September 5, 2026 @ 9:13 am
Yeah, 40 years ago.
September 5, 2026 @ 2:12 pm
NAFTA killed the working man.