Using generative AI in different forms of art has been a big topic of debate ever since the technology started advancing a couple of years ago. Many related cases have been filed, with people claiming that AI apps and software do not hold the rights to use a specific artist’s music and videos, among other things.The custodians of two of music history’s most distinctive voices, Elvis Presley and Eminem, are saying no to AI. In sweeping lawsuits filed in federal court, the plaintiffs claim that Suno AI, an AI music-building app, has built a multi-billion-dollar enterprise by scraping the two artists’ legacy catalogues and offering users a “conveyor belt” of unauthorised vocal and stylistic imitations without proper permission to use and/or imitate the artists’ likenesses.Read ahead to know more about the case.
Elvis Presley and Eminem’s music rights holders and publishers file a lawsuit against the AI platform
Variety reported that in Presley’s lawsuit against the generator application, the plaintiffs accused it of copyright infringement, exploiting Presley’s identity whenever Suno users cite his name to generate new songs, and using his likeness without permission. The 51-page filing accuses the platform of violating Tennessee’s Ensuring Likeness, Voice and Image Security (ELVIS) Act, a 2024 law that stops such AI companies from cloning singers’ voices. The allegations included that the app was allowing users to create AI tracks that matched Presley’s “rich vocal timbre” without explicit permission. The suit asked for unspecified statutory and punitive damages from the application.As for the case similarly filed by the publishers of rapper Eminem’s music, they accused the AI generative application of copyright infringement of around 269 musical compositions done by the musicians. These include ‘Lose Yourself,’ ‘Without Me,’ and ‘The Real Slim Shady.’ Their key claims include removal of digital rights info with USD 150,000 per work as max statutory damages. They alleged that the company allowed its users to generate and recreate tunes and lyrics that mimic and mirror the rapper’s music without any permission. They are seeking an additional USD 672,000 for CMI violations, bringing total demands to roughly USD 41 million. A claim from the filing read that the generative company has “mechanically encoded itself with artists’ identities, hard work, creativity, and time, and harnessed them all for a consistent conveyor belt of cold hard cash.”Elvis Presley’s attorneys also made a hard-hitting statement in the filing, sharing, “The next Elvis won’t pick up a guitar. Suno’s ravenous race to the bottom aims to make human creativity obsolete, coldly replicating without a license in seconds what takes years to learn, struggle with, maintain, and endlessly attempt to make better and perfect, begging the question from future generations who would attempt to start what is already an arduous, uncertain, and not always lucrative creative pursuit: ‘What’s the point?’”
The platform has denied all allegations made by Elvis Presley’s estate and Eminem’s music publishers
The platform, which has been accused, has denied all of the allegations that have been made by the artist’s management. Their statement read, “Suno exists to help people create new, original music, not to trade on anyone’s name or likeness, and we prohibit any unauthorised use of an artist’s work. To protect against this, we do not allow prompts for specific artists’ names and songs and work with third-party providers to screen uploaded audio files and lyrics for potential misuse. We are always working to strengthen our guardrails, and we will continue to add new safeguards that protect artists and our users.”Similar lawsuits were filed against Anthropic and Meta by the estate, alleging that around 274 songs from Presley’s catalogue were used to train their AI chatbot without permission. In this case, they are seeking USD 48.6 million in damages for the use of the songs. They have also asked the platforms to stop the use of his songs and to stop infringing the rights holders’ copyrights.Disclaimer: The information in this report is based on a legal hearing as reported by a third-party source. The details provided represent allegations made by the parties involved and are not proven facts. The case is ongoing, and a final verdict has not been reached. The publication does not claim that the allegations are true.
