A group of independent musicians has filed proposed class-action lawsuits against Suno Inc., Uncharted Labs Inc.’s Udio, and Google LLC, alleging the companies scraped copyrighted recordings to train their AI music generators and, in a departure from similar suits, illicitly extracted and stored the plaintiffs’ voiceprints without consent.
The complaints, which target each developer separately, assert copyright infringement on sound recordings and compositions, removal of copyright management information, and circumvention of technological access controls. For the Lyria 3 suit against Google, the plaintiffs allege the company mined its own YouTube catalog to train the model despite those recordings not being licensed for AI purposes. Google has previously said it trained Lyria 3 on music it had the right to use under its terms of service, partner agreements, and applicable law.
What distinguishes the actions from dozens of other AI copyright cases is the inclusion of biometric privacy claims under Illinois’ Biometric Information Privacy Act. The plaintiffs allege each company extracted voiceprints from their recorded performances, collected and used those voiceprints as biometric identifiers, and did so without obtaining informed written consent or publishing a public data retention policy, as BIPA requires. Voiceprints, which encode the unique acoustic characteristics of an individual’s voice derived from the physical structure of their vocal tract, qualify as biometric identifiers under Illinois law.
The musicians named across the lawsuits include Sam Kogon, Magnus Fiennes, Michael Mell, Attack the Sound, Stan and James Burjek, and Directrix. Several plaintiffs had previously pursued Suno and Udio over their training data in earlier proceedings.
The lawsuits also include claims under the Lanham Act for false endorsement, as well as Illinois consumer protection statutes. Statutory damages under BIPA can reach $1,000 per negligent violation and $5,000 per intentional or reckless violation, making the biometric claims potentially significant in any class-wide calculation.
The cases arrive as AI music generation platforms face escalating legal exposure. The weaponization of synthesized voice against biometric authentication systems has become a concurrent concern for the industry, with the ability to clone a voiceprint now requiring only a short audio sample.
Sources: Bloomberg Law, Music Ally, Music Business Worldwide
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By the ID Tech Editorial Team
