Reservoir Takes Suno and Anthropic to Court Over More Than 1,000 Songs

Music publisher Reservoir has sued two of the best-known names in AI, accusing Suno and Anthropic of copying copyrighted songs to train their systems. The complaints name more than 1,000 works in total, including Madonna's "Papa Don't Preach," Johnny Cash's "Ring of Fire" and Joni Mitchell's "Both Sides Now" and "Big Yellow Taxi."

The two cases target different parts of each company's business. The suit against Suno, which makes an AI tool that generates complete songs from text prompts, alleges that the company took protected recordings and compositions from online music platforms and other sources to build a service that can produce full tracks on demand. The case against Anthropic focuses on song lyrics that Reservoir says were copied to train Claude, the company's general-purpose AI assistant. Reservoir's lawyers have described the goal as more than payment for past use. They argue the tools are meant to replace the artists whose work was used to build them.

Both complaints also invoke the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Reservoir alleges that the companies got around technical protections that control access to the material, and that they stripped or altered copyright management information, such as songwriter credits and publisher identifiers. Those claims can carry separate penalties from ordinary infringement, which is one reason the potential damages are so large. Law Commentary estimates the exposure at nearly $340 million in statutory damages, though that figure assumes Reservoir wins on liability and the court awards the maximum amount.

Anthropic disputes the allegations and says it intends to defend the lawsuit vigorously. Suno has not been quoted in the coverage we reviewed. The outcome could matter well beyond these two companies, since courts are still working out whether training AI models on copyrighted music and lyrics counts as fair use. Reservoir is the latest rights holder to challenge both firms, and more cases seem likely as the industry's licensing and litigation strategies continue to take shape.