SOCAN sues Suno for copyright infringement in AI-generated music
Canada's SOCAN filed a lawsuit against US-based Suno, alleging the AI music generator trained on and replicates songs from its repertoire without authorization or payment to creators. SOCAN identified 150 examples of AI outputs allegedly containing the same melodies, rhythms and lyrics as original works by artists including Avril Lavigne, Tom Cochrane and Nickelback.
What happened
SOCAN filed a lawsuit in the Federal Court of Canada on September 3, 2026, alleging that Suno's AI music generator copied songs from its repertoire without permission or compensation.
SOCAN identified hundreds of Suno outputs with substantially similar elements to songs in its repertoire, citing 150 examples including AI-generated versions of Avril Lavigne's 'Sk8terboi', Tom Cochrane's 'Life Is a Highway', and Nickelback's 'Photograph'. The AI-generated versions reportedly contain the same melody, rhythm, chord progressions and lyrics as originals, but with different voices.
Suno states on its website that it trains its AI models on 'publicly available music files and related metadata accessible on third-party websites on the open Internet.'
Reported impact
SOCAN, which manages rights for over 185,000 members in Canada and redistributes licensing fees to artists, argues that Suno infringed performing rights in musical works by generating and streaming outputs that replicate human-created songs without compensating creators.
SOCAN is seeking damages and all profits related to unauthorized distribution of the content, requesting CAD $20,000 per infringing work and exemplary damages of CAD $10 million.
Index analysis
Suno, valued at US$5.4 billion in its latest funding round, has over 100 million users and more than 2 million paid subscribers. The platform generates over 7 million musical compositions daily with reported annual revenues of US$300 million.
Classification
Sources and evidence
This record was researched and written by the Index, based on the following original reporting.