Suno sued again, as Danish CMO Koda accuses company of stealing its members’ music to train AI model

Suno is facing a fresh copyright lawsuit.  This time, Danish music rights organization Koda is suing the US-based AI music generator, claiming the company trained its AI model on copyrighted music without permission or payment.

Koda, which has over 52,000 members, comprising composers, songwriters, and music publishers, is accusing Suno of what it calls “the biggest theft in music history”.

The “landmark” case, brought before Copenhagen City Court today (November 4), marks the first time a Danish rights organization has sued an AI music service.

MBW understands that Koda is seeking a court declaration that Suno illegally used its members’ repertoire to train AI models and made those works available to the public through its service.

Koda presented evidence showing similarities between AI-generated tracks and original works by Danish artists including Aqua, MØ, Christopher, and more.

The organization also claims Suno obtained audio files through stream-ripping from YouTube and scraped song lyrics without authorization.

The lawsuit follows similar legal action taken against Suno by German collection society and licensing body GEMA earlier this year.

The platform is also currently facing a major copyright infringement lawsuit in the US brought by labels owned by Sony Music, Universal Music Group, and Warner Music Group. Suno is also facing copyright suits from indie artists.

AI generator Udio was also sued by the majors last year, but just last week, Universal Music Group settled its lawsuit with Udio and struck a deal with the company for a licensed AI music platform, set to launch in 2026.

In a press release on Tuesday (November 4), Koda CEO Gorm Arildsen said: “We are excited about what responsible AI can do for music.”

“INNOVATION CAN’T BE BUILT ON STOLEN GOODS. SUNO HAS TAKEN OUR MEMBERS’ CREATIVE WORK AND FED IT INTO THEIR MACHINES WITHOUT CONSENT, TRANSPARENCY OR REMUNERATION.”

GORM ARILDSEN, KODA

He added: “But innovation can’t be built on stolen goods. Suno has taken our members’ creative work and fed it into their machines without consent, transparency or remuneration. That is theft – and it threatens the future of music.”

Suno operates a service that generates music from text prompts.

Bloomberg reported two weeks ago that Suno is generating more than $100 million in annual revenue. The company was valued at $500 million in its most recent funding round and is seeking new investment at a projected $2 billion valuation.

The Koda lawsuit alleges Suno violated Danish copyright law by reproducing protected works and making them available to the public without authorization. Suno also runs a streaming service featuring AI-generated tracks in playlists and searchable libraries.

“We find it unacceptable that it requires legal action to make Suno and similar AI services pay for the music they use to build a service which they profit from,” added Koda’s Gorm Arildsen.

“If the industry wants to foster  the future of truly talented artists creating new music, we must protect them. These are the  actors most vulnerable to being trampled by big tech. We at Koda refuse to let algorithms shape  our cultural history.” 

“We find it unacceptable that it requires legal action to make Suno and similar AI services pay for the music they use to build a service which they profit from.”

Gorm Arildsen, Koda

A press release issued by Koda today cites a report by HBS Economics commissioned by Koda and IFPI Denmark, which estimates that AI-generated music could reduce Danish music industry revenue by 6.9 billion kroner ($680 million) from 2025 to 2030 without policy intervention.

The analysis predicts the industry will lose up to 28% of annual revenue by 2030.

Koda is calling for “a clear, industry-wide standard demanding consent, transparency and remuneration from tech companies using human created protected music for training or generating music”. It also urges “the entire sector to rally behind it”.

The org added that “recent licensing progress between industry actors, prove that lawful agreements are in fact possible. Koda’s lawsuit against Suno asks the court – and the industry – to choose a future where AI grows the pie  without hollowing out the roots.” 

In September, French streaming service Deezer reported that fully AI-generated music now constitutes 28% of all tracks uploaded to its platform daily. Deezer said it now receives over 30,000 fully AI-generated tracks daily, marking a sharp increase from the 20,000 figure it reported in April and the 10,000 it disclosed in January when it first launched its proprietary AI detection tool.

Last year, just two months after being sued by the major record companies, Suno and Udio (which has since settled with UMG), pretty much admitted that they used copyrighted recordings from the recording companies that sued them.

Suno explained that its “training data includes essentially all music files of reasonable quality that are accessible on the open Internet, abiding by paywalls, password protections, and the like, combined with similarly available text descriptions.”

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