A heavyweight law firm known for taking down Big Tobacco has entered the copyright battle against AI music generators Suno and Udio, signaling a major escalation in the fight to protect independent musicians. Hagens Berman, the firm behind what it describes as the largest recovery in litigation history, announced on June 22 that it has joined forces with Delgado Entertainment Law to represent independent artists whose recordings were allegedly copied without permission to train the two companies' AI music-generation models.

The arrival of Hagens Berman raises the stakes considerably for both companies. The firm's co-founder, Steve Berman, served as special assistant attorney general for 13 US states in State of Washington, et al. v. Philip Morris, et al., the landmark tobacco case that resulted in a $260 billion settlement. Now, Berman is turning his litigation firepower toward what he sees as another form of mass harm.

"Independent artists and producers represent the heart and soul of the music industry, and in the landscape of AI, they stand to lose the most. We believe that Udio and Suno have blatantly stolen works from millions of independent artists and have violated the terms of online platforms in order to do so," said Steve Berman, managing partner at Hagens Berman.

Steve Berman, Managing Partner at Hagens Berman

What Are the Core Allegations Against Suno and Udio?

The legal complaint alleges that Suno and Udio circumvented technological protections used by YouTube, Spotify, and other streaming platforms to copy "tens of millions" of recordings, the majority owned by independent artists. Rather than licensing music like other tech companies do, the complaint argues, both firms used a method called "stream-ripping" to download audio and then repackaged those works into AI-generated songs that compete directly with the originals in the same marketplace.

The case was originally filed in June 2025 by country musician Tony Justice and his label, 5th Wheel Records. Justice, a full-time truck driver whose song "Last of the Cowboys" has been streamed more than 8 million times on platforms like Spotify, sued both companies in separate complaints. The lawsuits now name Anthony Justice, 5th Wheel Records, and My Heartland Publishing as plaintiffs on behalf of independent artists who released music on streaming services since 2021.

A second group of independent artists, led by songwriter David Woulard, filed its own class actions against Udio and Suno in October 2025 in the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, brought by law firm Loevy & Loevy. These complaints allege copyright infringement and stream-ripping, alongside claims under Illinois' Biometric Information Privacy Act and Right of Publicity Act over the alleged use of artists' voiceprints and identities.

How Are the Courts Responding to These Claims?

The legal momentum appears to be shifting in favor of the plaintiffs. On May 21, the federal court hearing the Udio case denied in part the company's motion to dismiss, upholding claims under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which protects against circumventing technological protection measures. The DMCA claims center specifically on the stream-ripping method of downloading audio.

Suno has not denied using stream-ripping to obtain music from YouTube, but its lawyers argued the practice is not illegal under the DMCA. The labels countered that "the violation lies in the circumvention, not the reason for it," in a brief filed in October 2025. A separate federal court has yet to rule on Suno's motion to dismiss the case against it.

Why Your Music Might Already Be in AI Training Sets

Beyond the lawsuits, a broader investigation reveals just how widespread the practice of using artists' music without permission has become. Researchers at The Atlantic have made searchable databases public, allowing musicians to discover whether their work appears in datasets used to train AI music models. The findings are startling: Berlin-based artist Hainbach found 151 of his songs in a single dataset alone.

One dataset contains 12.3 million music tracks from YouTube, totaling 91 years of music, assembled by LAION, a nonprofit based in Germany that has received funding from Hugging Face and Stability AI's co-founder and former CEO Emad Mostaque. While these datasets often contain just pointers to the music rather than the actual audio files, the publicly available nature of the information means scrapers can easily retrieve the sound from YouTube and other platforms.

The problem extends beyond publicly disclosed datasets. Many AI music companies, including Google and Suno, do not fully disclose which training sets they use. When Google released Lyria 3, the company stated it was "using materials that YouTube and Google has a right to use under our terms of service, partner agreements, and applicable law". This language suggests Google trained Lyria on music uploaded to YouTube, which could include not only direct uploads but music transmitted via Digital Service Providers (DSPs).

Steps Independent Artists Can Take to Protect Themselves

• Search Public Databases: Use The Atlantic's searchable database to determine whether your music appears in known AI training datasets. This information is free and not paywalled, making it accessible to all musicians regardless of their label status or resources.
• Monitor Your Streaming Accounts: Keep detailed records of where your music is distributed and when. This documentation becomes crucial evidence if you need to join a class action lawsuit or pursue your own legal claims against AI companies.
• Review Terms of Service: Carefully examine the user agreements for every platform where you upload music, including YouTube, Spotify, and other DSPs. Many agreements may contain language that companies later interpret as granting permission to use your work for AI training.
• Consider Legal Representation: If you are an independent artist, joining an existing class action lawsuit may provide access to experienced legal counsel without upfront costs. Both the Hagens Berman and Loevy & Loevy cases are actively recruiting independent artists as plaintiffs.

What Happens Next in the AI Music Copyright Wars?

The independent artist cases follow litigation brought by the major record labels, which sued Suno and Udio in June 2024 through the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for "mass infringement" of copyright. However, the major labels have begun settling. Universal Music Group agreed a settlement with Udio in October 2025 but remains in active litigation with Suno. Warner Music Group reached its own settlement with Udio a month later and became the first major to settle with Suno in a deal the companies called "first-of-its-kind," which also saw Suno acquire the concert-discovery platform Songkick from Warner. Sony Music remains in litigation against both companies.

Suno is separately fighting to keep the terms of its Warner settlement away from UMG and Sony, which remain plaintiffs against the company. The company is also the subject of a separate copyright lawsuit in Germany, filed by collecting society GEMA in January 2025. In March 2026, a group of independent artists, several of them also plaintiffs against Suno and Udio, sued Google, alleging it trained its Lyria 3 model on copyrighted recordings from YouTube.

"Udio and Suno have attempted to hide their infringement behind flimsy fair-use arguments that we believe do not hold up to their behavior," said Steve Berman.

Steve Berman, Managing Partner at Hagens Berman

The lawsuits against Suno and Udio seek damages for affected artists and an injunction to end what Hagens Berman calls "massive and ongoing infringement" of their rights. With a law firm of Hagens Berman's caliber now involved, the legal landscape for AI music generation has fundamentally shifted. The question is no longer whether these companies used copyrighted music without permission, but rather what consequences they will face for doing so.