Entities that own copyrights in Elvis Presley’s music catalog have sued Suno in California federal court, alleging the AI music generator misused their work to train its models. The complaint was filed on Friday, November 6, 2026, alongside a separate suit from the owners of Eminem’s catalog.
The groups said Suno infringed hundreds of their copyrights by using the music to train its AI music generator to produce similar work, Reuters reported on November 9. Elvis Presley Enterprises also accused Suno of violating a Tennessee law named after Presley that is meant to block AI companies from misusing artists’ names, images, voices, and likenesses.
The two lawsuits
The Elvis case is Elvis Presley Enterprises v. Suno Inc, US District Court for the Northern District of California, No. 3:26-cv-13398. The Eminem case, Eight Mile Style LLC v. Suno Inc, No. 3:26-cv-13399, was filed the same day. GPTOnline previously reported on the Eminem filing.
Spokespeople for Suno did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the complaints on Monday, Reuters reported.
The ELVIS Act claim
The Tennessee law at the center of the Elvis complaint is the ELVIS Act, the Ensuring Likeness, Voice, and Image Security Act of 2024. Tennessee Governor Bill Lee signed the law on March 21, 2024, and it took effect on July 1, 2024. It was the first state law in the country specifically designed to address how artificial intelligence can replicate a person’s voice or appearance without permission.
The law defines “voice” as a sound readily identifiable and attributable to a particular individual, whether it contains the person’s actual voice or a computer-generated simulation. It gives every individual a property right in the use of their name, photograph, voice, or likeness, and it creates liability for distributing a tool whose primary purpose is producing a specific, identifiable person’s photograph, voice, or likeness without authorization. Those rights continue after death, belonging to heirs or assignees for at least ten years.
A growing pile of AI training lawsuits
Suno has previously been sued by major music labels Warner Music Group, Universal Music Group, and Sony Music over its AI training. Warner has since settled its lawsuit, while the Universal and Sony cases are still ongoing, Reuters reported.
Presley’s rightsholders separately sued Anthropic in October for allegedly misusing his lyrics to train its chatbot Claude.
Why it matters
The Elvis filing shows copyright owners moving beyond label catalogs to sue over individual artist catalogs, and it puts Tennessee’s ELVIS Act to its first high-profile test against an AI company. The law’s tool-liability clause reaches beyond the music Suno generated: it targets the distribution of a technology whose primary purpose is producing a specific person’s voice or likeness. If the claim survives, it could give artists in every state a template for suing AI companies under publicity-rights laws, not just copyright law.
For Suno, the case adds two more fronts to a legal fight that already includes the three major labels. The company has not commented on either new complaint.
