The metro Detroit company that handles the rights to many of Eminem’s best-known songs is suing the generative AI platform Suno, claiming the rapper’s copyrighted music was used to train the model. The lawsuit, filed late Friday night (Nov. 6) in San Francisco federal court, joins a growing flurry of litigation aimed at the AI song generator by music industry heavyweights. The Ferndale-based publisher Eight Mile Style owns and administers the rights to nearly 270 Eminem compositions, including hits such as “Lose Yourself,” “Without Me,” “’Till I Collapse,” “The Real Slim Shady” and “Stan.” The publisher argues that Suno is benefiting “from the fruits of others’ labor” and seeks more than $41 million in damages, claiming copyright infringement and other violations. “The works are some of the most valuable in the world, and Eight Mile Style is very protective of these iconic songs,” the lawsuit reads. In Friday’s filing, Eight Mile Style contends the Massachusetts-based Suno “has built their entire business model based on copyright infringement at a scale heretofore unseen.” Reached by the Detroit Free Press, a Suno spokesperson said Saturday: "Suno 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. To protect against this, we do not allow prompts for specific artists' names and songs and work with third party providers to screen uploaded audio files and lyrics for potential misuse. We are always working to strengthen our guardrails and we will continue to add new safeguards that protect artists and our users." Suno, which launched in 2023, allows users to generate songs with text and image prompts describing genres, styles, lyrical concepts and other elements. It offers free and paid subscription tiers. In its 32-page complaint, the Eminem publisher notes that Suno has previously disclosed in court that its AI model was trained on “essentially all music files of reasonable quality that are accessible on the open Internet.” “Suno made illicit copies of millions of copyrighted musical works, including Eight Mile Style’s works, and then – without any remuneration to the rights holders – created a platform where anyone capable of paying $10 per month can create complete songs based entirely on these illicit copies,” the complaint reads. Among the examples cited in the lawsuit is a Suno-generated track titled “Slim shady x Rosefalls,” which uses an AI-generated image of Eminem as cover art and vocals “clearly derived from Eminem’s actual voice,” the publisher contends. Other cited instances include verbatim or similar versions of lyrics from songs such as “Lose Yourself,” “The Real Slim Shady” and “Houdini” in tracks generated by the service. While Suno has implemented restrictions to block prompts that name specific artists – a user cannot type the cue “Eminem,” for example – Eight Mile Style says those guardrails are easily bypassed. For instance, the lawsuit says, users can prompt Suno to generate a “Slim Shady”-style track by using a string of terms such as “aggressive rap, rapid-fire flow, dark humor, male rapper, horrorcore, intense beat, bass-heavy, menacing, controversial.” Leaked Suno source code reportedly obtained by an online hacker shows that the AI service scraped Eminem music and lyrics from sites such as YouTube and Genius.com, the complaint notes. Suno was sued in June 2024 by the Recording Industry Association of America on behalf of major record labels. Since then, two of those labels, BMG and Warner Music Group, have made licensing deals with the AI firm. Universal Music Group, Eminem’s record company, remains a plaintiff. Citing U.S. copyright law, Eight Mile Style lawsuit says it is entitled to $150,000 for each of the 269 Eminem songs it controls, or $40.4 million. The company also claims Suno illicitly removed digital copyright information embedded in the songs it trained on and is seeking an additional $672,000 in damages. We're always working to improve your experience. Let us know what you think.