Suno replaces its AI models with a new one trained on licensed music as copyright suits pile up

Suno v6 Launch and Licensing Background

Suno unveiled Suno v6 on Wednesday, saying it was developed using licensed data from music labels and distributors such as Warner Music Group, BMG, and Believe. The company has faced multiple lawsuits from record labels accusing it of using copyrighted data to train its AI music-generation models. Suno settled with Warner Music Group last year and struck a deal with BMG last month. The company said Suno v6 is not trained using the data it used to train previous versions.

Model Versions and Features

Suno is releasing three versions:

• Suno v6 (base): available to paying users; reliable and steerable for controlled outputs
• Suno v6 wild: experimental, available to paying users, for ideation and unexpected results
• Suno v6 mini: faster version, available to all users

The company plans to retire its older models. Suno v6 lets users edit a part of a song using a prompt or a word in the lyrics, and use text, images, or video as references to create tracks. Users can separate an instrument from a sample and create a new beat with it.

The startup plans to add a remix feature, provided artists opt in to a new program with music labels letting Suno use their songs for AI-generated features.

Revenue, Watermark, and Ecosystem Management

Jack Brody, Suno's chief product officer, said derivative work creates more revenue opportunities: "I think the music ecosystem and our partners are always looking for ways to create more revenue opportunities for their rights holders and artists. So a big part of this release is creating additional revenue streams there," Brody told TechCrunch.

Last month, Suno said it plans to add a watermark to generated songs and introduced new download limits based on account tier. "We can help manage some of the broader ecosystem challenges like streaming fraud and kind of mass exportation and uploading to distributors that are low intent. At the end of the day, we think it is up to the distributors and the platforms to govern what content goes on there," Brody said.

Controversies and Funding

Suno still faces lawsuits from labels like Sony and Universal Music Group, artist Jason Isbell, and users alleging it ignored security while chasing profits. The announcement comes a day after the company admitted to training models using YouTube videos. Despite this, Suno has raised over $819 million in funding to date, according to PitchBook data.