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The Lawsuit Tracker
Every major ongoing dispute involving record labels and the music-industry gatekeepers, in one place, what stage it’s at, the latest development, and what’s at stake. Sourced from public reporting and refreshed on a schedule.
Tracking 16 active disputes · last refreshed 2026-09-25
Drake v. UMG, defamation over 'Not Like Us'
Whether UMG is liable for publishing and promoting Kendrick Lamar's 'Not Like Us,' which Drake alleges falsely portrays him as a child sex offender; foundational question of whether rap diss tracks can constitute actionable defamation.
Latest The appeal now has a hearing date. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has set oral argument for December 4, 2026, as reported September 18, 2026, putting Drake's lawyers and UMG's before a three-judge panel more than a year after Judge Jeannette Vargas dismissed the case in October 2025 as nonactionable opinion. Briefing has been complete since Drake's reply brief on April 17, 2026.
Sony Music v. Suno. AI training copyright infringement (D. Mass.)
Whether AI music generators training on copyrighted recordings without licenses constitutes copyright infringement or fair use; could determine the legality of the entire AI music generation industry.
Latest Suno has admitted in a court filing that it took its training audio from YouTube. In a September 1, 2026 answer to the labels' amended complaint, Suno states that 'audio data was obtained from YouTube for use as training data using YT-DLP,' while arguing the labels lack standing to bring a DMCA anti-circumvention claim, that any copying is fair use, and that the labels' claims are barred by copyright misuse because they 'extend an unlawful monopoly' over music. The answer follows two August 18 orders from Judge Saylor: he granted UMG and Sony leave to add a Section 1201 'stream ripping' claim (the amended complaint was filed August 25, seeking up to $2,500 per act of circumvention on top of $150,000 per work), but denied their bid to add 61,026 recordings to the 560 in suit, writing that doing so would have 'obvious consequences of complexity and delay' and that Suno 'is entitled to a timely resolution' of the fair use question; the labels may assert the extra works in a separate suit. They did exactly that on September 18, 2026, filing a second Massachusetts action over 60,202 recordings that also targets Suno's new v6 models. Fact discovery in this case still closes September 30, 2026, with dispositive motions due April 9, 2027. Separately, on July 31, 2026 the Munich Regional Court ruled for GEMA against Suno in the first European decision on a generative AI music tool, finding both training and outputs infringed; that judgment is under appeal.
33 States v. Live Nation / Ticketmaster, antitrust monopoly (remedies phase)
Potential forced divestiture of Ticketmaster from Live Nation, venue sell-offs, fee caps, and structural breakup of the live-music industry's dominant vertically integrated conglomerate; billions in consumer damages.
Latest The states have now made their most detailed case that the DOJ's settlement would leave Ticketmaster stronger, not weaker. In a September 4, 2026 Tunney Act public comment reported September 16, attorneys general from 17 states and D.C. call the proposed final judgment 'vague, ambiguous, and not reasonably calculated to meaningfully restore competition' and warn that parts of it could 'further entrench Ticketmaster's market power by positioning it as a gatekeeper.' Writing as 'co-equal enforcers and co-plaintiffs,' they argue the open-distribution remedy would enshrine Ticketmaster's back end as privileged industry infrastructure that rivals must pay for and expose their data to; that none of the 13 'Divestiture Venues' is actually owned or leased by Live Nation, so no amphitheater asset is being divested; and that the decree 'reappoints the very same monitor used to oversee the past two failed settlements.' They again ask for discovery and an evidentiary hearing into how the March settlement was struck, citing White House involvement and an August Tunney Act ruling in the HPE/Juniper case. The states are not alone: AEG, SeatGeek, TicketNetwork, the National Independent Venue Association, Messina Touring Group and the American Antitrust Institute all filed objections before the comment period closed September 4, with AEG warning the decree 'does not break Ticketmaster's grip; it tightens it' on the basis that the rebidding requirement still leaves Ticketmaster about 85% of the market and opens only roughly 170 events to bid, and AEG and SeatGeek both noting that opening Ticketmaster's back end to rivals still lets it collect fees on their sales. Judge Subramanian has indicated he expects to rule on the settlement between mid-September and mid-October. Live Nation's post-trial Rule 50(b) and Rule 59 motions, argued July 31, remain undecided, and remedies discovery stays frozen until they are resolved.
UMG / Sony v. Suno (round two), 60,202 recordings and the v6 'poisoned tree'
Whether a generative AI model trained on the outputs and preference data of earlier, allegedly infringing models inherits that infringement; 60,202 recordings at up to $150,000 each puts the theoretical ceiling just over $9 billion, plus roughly $150 million in DMCA circumvention claims.
Latest Filed September 18, 2026 in Boston federal court (No. 1:26-cv-14275). UMG and Sony accuse Suno of copying 60,202 of their recordings without a license and building every model it has released on them, and say Suno's new v6 suite does not break the chain: 'Training a new model on the outputs of an infringing model does not eliminate the infringement; it launders it... v6 is not a fresh start; it is the fruit of the same poisoned tree.' Suno launched v6 on September 9 in partnership with Warner Music Group, BMG and Believe, and Chief Product Officer Jack Brody told MBW it 'was trained entirely from scratch, from the ground up' on data that 'doesn't include data from Universal or Sony.' The labels counter that v6 was trained on 'user interactions' with prior models and by knowledge distillation from them, so its 'training corpus, in substance, embodies the accumulated learnings of models built on Plaintiffs' works.' The suit was triggered by Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV's August 18 refusal to add 61,026 recordings to the labels' original 2024 case, in which he noted they could be brought separately; the labels say they identified their works inside Suno's training data using Audible Magic during discovery. They seek an injunction and a jury trial.
Sony Music v. Udio (round two), 30,117 recordings AI training suit
Whether Udio's copying of 30,117 Sony recordings to train its AI models, allegedly including stream-ripping from YouTube via YT-DLP, constitutes copyright infringement and DMCA circumvention; statutory damages could reach roughly $4.5 billion, and Sony is the only major label that has not licensed or settled with Udio.
Latest Udio answered the complaint in late August 2026, conceding the stream-ripping while contesting that it was unlawful. The filing acknowledges that Udio obtained 'audio data from YouTube for use as training data' and acquired a portion 'of its training data by utilizing' YT-DLP, then argues the copying is protected because its 'AI tool uses a back-end technological process, invisible to the public, in the service of creating an ultimately non-infringing new product' — 'quintessential fair use.' Udio also raises copyright misuse, accusing Sony of 'anticompetitive activities that extend an unlawful monopoly over the production and commercialization of music,' and pleads a statute-of-limitations defense, a spread of affirmative defenses that suggests any trial is far off. The answer reiterates that Udio now holds licensing deals with Universal Music, Warner Music, Merlin, Kobalt, Believe, and the NMPA, leaving Sony alone in court. In the original 2024 case, the court has scheduled a status conference for late October.
UMG v. DistroKid, 'AI-generated slop' and deceptive distribution
Whether the world's largest music distributor by volume is liable for copyright infringement and deceptive trade practices by knowingly distributing unlicensed versions of major-label recordings and mass-uploaded AI tracks presented as real artist releases; UMG's exhibits name 1,000 recordings at up to $150,000 each and call them 'the tip of the iceberg.'
Latest Filed September 15, 2026 in the District of Delaware. UMG and Capitol Records allege DistroKid has 'engaged in both deceptive trade practices and blatant copyright infringement,' saying it 'is flooding platforms with AI-generated slop that siphons revenue and listeners from the legitimate artists and rightsholders' and 'proliferates infringing tracks across platforms, and continues that distribution even when it knows the tracks infringe.' The complaint is explicit that it is 'not about the distribution of AI-generated music when clearly disclosed as such,' but about DistroKid 'masquerading as something it is not and benefiting from that false impression' — giving the market the false impression that what it distributes is artist-backed, that it supports anti-fraud initiatives, and that it opposes infringement. DistroKid said it 'strongly disagrees with UMG's allegations' and is 'disappointed that it chose litigation rather than established industry processes,' adding that it is 'confident in our practices and intend to defend DistroKid vigorously.'
AFM v. UMG / Warner, AI licensing without musician pay
Whether major labels breached their collective bargaining agreement by licensing union members' recordings to AI companies Suno and Udio without compensation or credit; could determine if the 'new uses' provision entitles session musicians to a share of every label-AI licensing deal.
Latest The AFM filed its opposition to the majors' motions to dismiss on September 4, 2026, arguing that Article 21(a) of the Sound Recording Labor Agreement 'is reasonably susceptible to more than one interpretation' and that a plausible reading is all it needs to survive dismissal. The union says the provision can be read to trigger a payment obligation whenever a signatory uses a covered recording for a purpose the SRLA does not cover, with existing session, streaming, and sampling rates available to measure it, and that under the labels' reading 'a company's own failure to provide notice would shield it from liability for that very failure.' It also quotes Judge Edgardo Ramos at the July 21 pre-motion conference asking the labels: 'why shouldn't you pay the authors of that music?' UMG moved to dismiss August 5 and Warner Records and Atlantic on August 14, each arguing no AFM agreement sets a rate for AI use so no payment is owed. Briefing closed September 11, 2026; the motions are now with the court while the AFM and the labels negotiate the next SRLA with AI at the center.
Sony Music Publishing / Warner Chappell v. Anthropic, multi-billion dollar AI lyrics torrenting suit
Whether Anthropic's acquisition of lyrics and sheet music through pirate libraries (LibGen, Pirate Library Mirror) and scraped lyric sites, and its use of that material to train and run Claude, is willful infringement or fair use; with 'tens of thousands' of compositions at up to $150,000 per work plus $25,000 per removed copyright notice, theoretical exposure runs into the billions, and two Anthropic co-founders are named personally.
Latest Filed August 28, 2026 in the Northern District of California. Sony Music Publishing and Warner Chappell Music accuse Anthropic, CEO Dario Amodei, and co-founder Benjamin Mann of 'a brazen campaign of illegally torrenting, scraping, and downloading copyrighted works on a massive scale,' calling it 'one of the largest and most blatant ongoing thefts of intellectual property in history.' The complaint leans on findings unsealed in the authors' Bartz v. Anthropic case, alleging Mann torrented at least five million pirated books from Library Genesis in June 2021 and that employees took two million more from Pirate Library Mirror in 2022, and adds that Anthropic scraped licensed lyric sites including Musixmatch and LyricFind. An Anthropic spokesperson said the suit is 'recycling allegations from cases already before the courts' and that training is 'a transformative fair use, as the court held in Bartz.' With this filing, the publishing arms of all three majors are now suing Anthropic.
Sony Music v. Kroger, 392 recordings in social media ads
Whether a major retailer's use of copyrighted recordings in its own and paid influencers' social media ads constitutes willful infringement; with statutory damages of up to $150,000 per work across at least 392 alleged uses, exposure approaches $58.8 million, and the case extends Sony's campaign of enforcement actions against brands using music in social ads without sync licenses.
Latest Sony Music Entertainment and nine affiliated labels sued The Kroger Co. and 18 related entities on August 21, 2026 in the Central District of California, alleging at least 392 unauthorized uses of Sony recordings in social media posts by Kroger brands and by influencers paid to promote them. The complaint calls the conduct 'rampant infringement' and notes Kroger had signed at least 14 licensing agreements with Sony through 2025, which Sony says shows the company knew it needed licenses. Kroger has not publicly responded.
Round Hill v. Suno / Anthropic, twin $1B AI training suits
Whether AI companies infringed the copyrights in Round Hill's musical compositions, including 'Iris,' 'Total Eclipse of the Heart,' 'Lola,' and 'Holy Diver,' by training on them without a license; the publisher says damages in each case could exceed $1 billion and, unlike the majors, it is explicitly refusing to settle and wants a jury verdict on fair use.
Latest Filed August 17, 2026. Independent publisher Round Hill filed separate copyright suits against Suno and Anthropic in the Northern District of California, each listing roughly 500 infringed compositions with plans to amend to 'potentially ten thousand or more,' pushing potential damages in each case past $1 billion. Round Hill says there is 'nothing fair' about building multibillion-dollar AI businesses on copyrighted songs while rightsholders get nothing, and says it intends to take both cases to a jury verdict rather than negotiate licensing settlements.
UMG / Concord / ABKCO v. Anthropic, $3B AI lyrics copyright suit
$3 billion in alleged copyright infringement damages; whether AI large language models can train on and reproduce song lyrics without license; outcome could govern every LLM's relationship with song publishing catalogs.
Latest Anthropic is trying to carve down the $3 billion case: on August 3, 2026 it moved for partial dismissal, arguing the publishers' claim that Claude reproduces lyrics in its outputs 'lacks even a single example of any allegedly infringing output' and that the DMCA claim fails, while CEO Dario Amodei separately moved to dismiss the direct-infringement count against him personally. Anthropic is not moving against the core claims over torrenting lyrics from pirate libraries and copying works to train Claude. Both motions are set for hearing November 4, 2026 before Judge Eumi K. Lee in San Jose; the publishers' March 2026 partial summary judgment motion on fair use remains pending.
Sony / UMG v. Musi, 'parasitic app' copyright action in Canada
Whether a free streaming app that pipes YouTube's catalog into its own ad- and subscription-supported interface infringes copyright and unlawfully circumvents technical protection measures; the majors are using the case to press app stores to remove similar services.
Latest Sony Music Group and Universal Music Group announced on August 6, 2026 that they are commencing legal proceedings in Canada against Musi's developers, coordinated by the IFPI and its Canadian national group Music Canada. The action alleges Musi makes copyright-protected sound recordings available to the public without authorization and deliberately circumvents YouTube's technical protections to take content from the service. IFPI CEO Victoria Oakley said the industry is 'serving notice on parasitic apps' and called for 'effective, direct action from the mobile app stores.' Musi has not publicly responded.
RBX v. Spotify, two-tier streaming fraud class action
Whether Spotify polices artificial streams aggressively for independent artists while tolerating them for superstars, and whether it owed rightsholders a duty to disclose that. The complaint estimates fraudulent streams diverted at least $600 million in royalties away from other artists and labels over roughly 48 months through 2025.
Latest Judge Josephine Staton dismissed the original complaint on June 22, 2026, finding RBX had not shown Spotify owed him a duty to protect him from third-party bot activity and questioning why a case centered on Drake's streams did not name Drake as a defendant. She allowed an amended filing, and RBX filed one in late July 2026 that expands the two-tier theory: that Spotify 'intentionally ignores fraud committed by certain a-list artists,' letting their manipulated plays count toward a finite royalty pool shared by everyone else, and that Spotify had a duty to disclose this while representing that it 'evenhandedly protects the integrity of its music royalty ecosystem.' A Spotify spokesperson told CMU on July 30 that the amended complaint is 'baseless' and 'doesn't address the deficiencies the court already identified,' adding: 'we intend to seek dismissal.'
Kratter v. Spotify, undisclosed stream-filtering / royalty suppression
Whether Spotify's undisclosed stream-filtering rules and its 1,000-play royalty threshold constitute unfair and deceptive business practices that systematically suppress independent artists' payouts while favoring major labels and high-volume catalogs.
Latest A venue fight is now underway: after Spotify filed a notice of removal on July 2, 2026 to shift the case to federal court, Kratter moved on July 3 to remand it to Connecticut state court, calling the removal 'improper, frivolous, and unsupported by any objectively reasonable basis' and arguing Spotify cannot show the $75,000 amount-in-controversy threshold. The underlying claims are unchanged: Kratter alleges Spotify uses 'opaque rules and undisclosed filtering criteria' that disproportionately harm independent artists, tracing a March 2026 recommendation-system overhaul to a 'sharp and measurable decline in counted streams' for his catalog, and seeks damages, an injunction, and a full accounting of filtered streams.
Limp Bizkit v. UMG, $200M royalties fraud suit
Allegations that UMG deliberately engineered royalty-accounting software to conceal unpaid artist royalties across its entire catalog, with $200M+ in claimed damages; parallel copyright infringement claim based on UMG's continued distribution after contract termination notice.
Latest As of March 2025, Judge Percy Anderson (C.D. Cal.) denied UMG's motion to dismiss the copyright infringement claims, allowing them to proceed in federal court, while redirecting breach-of-contract and fraud claims to state court; Limp Bizkit filed those claims in Los Angeles County Superior Court on March 24, 2025, and both tracks are in active litigation as of June 2026.
Salt-N-Pepa v. UMG, copyright termination / masters reclaim
Whether hip-hop artists who signed to an intermediary label in the 1980s can invoke Section 203 of the Copyright Act to terminate UMG's ownership of master recordings including 'Push It'; broader precedent on who controls catalog originating from work-for-hire and third-party-signed deals.
Latest As of May 5, 2026, UMG filed its response brief with the Second Circuit, arguing Salt-N-Pepa's termination bid 'lacks legal foundation' because the duo never themselves executed the original copyright transfer; the duo can still file a reply brief before oral argument is scheduled.
Recently closed
Jermaine Dupri / So So Def v. Sony Music, $18M royalty accounting suit
More than $18 million in allegedly unpaid and underreported royalties across three decades of So So Def recordings, and whether a major label maintained parallel accounting systems that kept a producer and label partner from ever seeing what he was owed.
Latest Closed by agreement, terms undisclosed. On August 28, 2026, Dupri and his So So Def companies filed a notice of voluntary dismissal without prejudice in the Southern District of New York, stating the parties 'have resolved the matter prior to joinder,' less than two months after filing and before Sony had responded to any allegation. Neither side has disclosed what the resolution involved; the filing sets out no payment, timetable, or accounting remedy, and the dismissal without prejudice leaves Dupri free to refile.
Capolongo v. Spotify, 'Discovery Mode' payola class action
Whether Spotify's Discovery Mode, which algorithmically boosts songs in exchange for a 30% royalty reduction, without disclosing to listeners that recommendations are paid placements, constitutes undisclosed payola and consumer fraud.
Latest On April 30, 2026, Judge John G. Koeltl (S.D.N.Y.) granted Spotify's motion to compel individual arbitration and dismissed the class action claims with prejudice, citing the plaintiff's agreement to Spotify's terms of service; the case has moved to private arbitration at National Arbitration and Mediation.
Methodology: entries are compiled from public reporting (court-records coverage by outlets like Billboard, Reuters, Variety, and Music Business Worldwide), allegations are allegations until a court rules. This tracker is not exhaustive and is not legal reporting of record; see each entry’s sources for the underlying coverage. Spot an error or a missing dispute? Tell us - corrections take priority. For the history behind these fights, see the case archive.