Elvis Estate and Eminem Publisher Sue Suno Over AI Voice Cloning

"The next Elvis won't pick up a guitar." Those words were written by attorneys into a 51-page complaint filed in the Northern District of California by Authentic Brands Group, Raleigh Music Publishing and other Presley rights holders, according to Variety. The filing accuses Suno of violating Tennessee's Ensuring Likeness Voice and Image Security Act, the 2024 statute known as the ELVIS Act, by letting users generate tracks that mirror Presley's "rich vocal timbre" without permission. The complaint says Suno produced an Elvis clone as recently as last month from a prompt whose lyrics simply included his name.

Filed alongside it: a separate copyright suit from Eight Mile Style, the Ferndale-based publisher that controls roughly 269 Eminem compositions including "Lose Yourself," "Without Me," "'Till I Collapse" and "The Real Slim Shady." Eight Mile Style is seeking $150,000 per song, or about $41 million in total. Its filing says Suno "has built their entire business model based on copyright infringement at a scale heretofore unseen."

Suno pushed back. The company "exists to help people create new, original music, not to trade on anyone's name or likeness, and we prohibit any unauthorized use of an artist's work," it said in a statement, and told the court there was "nothing unlawful" about asking for a song in the vein of an artist.

The suits land about two months after UMG and Sony's second Suno complaint and roughly a week after UMG's Udio settlement. Suno has not settled with the majors.