AI & Music

Can an AI Song Generator Copy a Voice? What Elvis's Rights Owners and Eminem's Publisher Allege Against Suno

By the Starchild Music team · November 9, 2026 · 6 min read

A sunlit workshop bench with a vintage ribbon microphone resting on a velvet cushion under a glass dome, a brass balance scale beside it holding a small golden record on one side and a stack of blank sheet music on the other, and tall windows letting in warm morning light

The short answer

Whether AI can copy a voice depends on the state and the facts, and two new lawsuits ask a court to say. On November 6, 2026, Elvis Presley Enterprises and other music rightsholders sued Suno in California under Tennessee's ELVIS Act and copyright law, and Eminem's publisher, Eight Mile Style, filed a separate copyright suit. These are allegations, not findings: Suno says it does not allow prompts for specific artists' names and songs, and the reports reviewed show no ruling.

Short answer: it depends on where the singer lives and what the tool does. On Friday, November 6, 2026, Elvis Presley Enterprises and other music rightsholders sued the AI music company Suno. Elvis Presley Enterprises says it owns and controls the rights to his name, image, voice and likeness. The suit asks a federal court to apply Tennessee's voice law to Suno. The same day, Eight Mile Style, the Michigan publisher tied to Eminem, filed its own suit. Both are in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

Everything below is what the plaintiffs allege or what Suno says, taken from the Elvis complaint itself and from news reports. Nothing has been decided. This is general information, not legal advice.

What the Elvis suit says

The 51-page complaint (case 3:26-cv-13398) is brought by Elvis Presley Enterprises, ABG EPE IP, Raleigh Music Publishing and several songwriter trusts and other rightsholders. It says Suno's system makes new songs in Presley's voice. It attaches recorded examples: five it says copy both his voice and his songs, 33 that use his voice, nine that copy his songs, and three that copy Raleigh's songs. It calls the voice recordings "synthetic and unlicensed uses of Elvis' voice and likeness."

The complaint also describes a test. As recently as October 7, it says, entering only four lines of lyrics, one of which spells out Presley's name with spaces between the letters, made Suno generate two songs titled "He Is Still The King." The complaint says each contains a copy of his voice over a rockabilly-style track.

Three kinds of claims, in plain words

The suits mix three kinds of claims.

Voice and name. These rights protect a person, not a song. The Elvis plaintiffs rely on Tennessee's ELVIS Act and Tennessee common law, and argue that Tennessee law applies because Presley died living there.
Copyright. This protects songs and recordings. Both suits say Suno copied songs to train its system and that some of its outputs repeat them. The Elvis suit names 859 songs. Eight Mile Style names 269.
Locks and credits. These are federal claims under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. One says Suno got around technical barriers, such as logins and paywalls, to copy songs. The other says it stripped songwriter and owner information. The Elvis complaint makes both claims, and CBS Detroit lists both in the Eight Mile Style suit.

What the ELVIS Act says

Tennessee passed the Ensuring Likeness, Voice, and Image Security Act of 2024, known as the ELVIS Act, by 93 to 0 in the House and 30 to 0 in the Senate. The governor signed it on March 26, 2024, and it took effect on July 1, 2024. According to the legislature's summary, the law:

adds a person's voice to the personal rights Tennessee already protected;
adds liability for knowingly using a voice without permission in advertising, fundraising or sales;
adds liability for distributing a tool whose "primary purpose" is producing a particular, identifiable person's photograph, voice or likeness without authorization;
extends the law's exceptions, such as news, commentary and parody, to voice.

The bill as first filed defined "voice" as a sound "readily identifiable and attributable to a particular individual, regardless of whether the sound contains the actual voice or a simulation of the voice." The enacted wording may differ.

Two points stand out. It is state law, and the complaint argues Tennessee's applies because Presley died living there. And the tool clause turns on a tool's "primary purpose." The complaint says the primary purpose of Suno's technology is to produce particular people's voices. Whether a general music generator meets that test is for the court to decide.

The dollar figures are ceilings, not forecasts

For willful copyright infringement, the complaint asks for up to $150,000 per song, which it totals at $128,850,000 across 859 songs. It says its losses under the ELVIS Act are believed to exceed $50 million and asks for triple damages, arguing that Presley's Army service from about March 1958 to March 1960 makes him a "member of the armed forces" under the Tennessee law. It also asks the court to order the destruction of unauthorized copies, including those in training datasets and model weights. These are the most the plaintiffs can ask for. They are not a prediction.

Eight Mile Style's separate suit

Eight Mile Style says Suno took 269 compositions that it owns or controls. According to CBS Detroit, the complaint alleges Suno made "illicit copies of millions of copyrighted musical works," including the publisher's, and gives an example in which Suno made a track titled "Lose Yourself by Eminem" that allegedly copies the song's lyrics word for word. It also cites a July report by 404 Media, based on hacked Suno data, that Suno scraped millions of songs and lyrics from YouTube Music, Deezer and Genius. Suno has called that leaked code "outdated source code that is no longer in use at Suno," as we noted in Lyrics on Trial.

The claims reported are copyright infringement, getting around protection measures and removing credit information, not publicity rights. AllHipHop reports the publisher seeks about $41 million: $150,000 for each of the 269 compositions, or $40.35 million, plus $672,000 over the alleged removal of copyright information. Eminem himself is not a plaintiff.

What Suno says

Suno gave CBS this statement: "Suno exists to help people create new, original music, not to trade on anyone's name or likeness." It said it prohibits "any unauthorized use of an artist's work," does not "allow prompts for specific artists' names and songs," and works with third-party providers to screen uploaded audio and lyrics. It added that it is "always working to strengthen our guardrails."

A related case shows the same argument. Jason Isbell, David Lowery, Guy Forsyth and Eduardo Calle filed a proposed class action against Suno in federal court in Boston on August 31, Music Business Worldwide reports. The 84-page complaint has no copyright claim. It argues that Suno uses musicians' identities without consent, including under Illinois's biometric privacy law. Digital Music News quotes Suno's motion to dismiss: "When people describe styles of music, they often use artists' names as shorthand for the genre they perform in." The motion also says "Congress made the considered policy choice not to confer intellectual property protection on an artistic style."

The Elvis complaint quotes the same Suno brief, in which Suno says its outputs "do not replicate the auditory characteristics of any real artist's voice to the point that someone would confuse a Suno creation with one actually sung by a particular famous musician." The complaint calls such statements "unequivocally false" and offers its recordings as proof. The reports we read show no reply from Suno to that.

What it means for artists and songwriters

Where you live matters. In July 2024 the U.S. Copyright Office wrote that "not all states' laws protect an individual's voice," and that those that do may protect only distinct, well-known or commercially valuable voices, or only actual voices rather than a digital replica. It called the result "a patchwork of protections" and recommended a federal law. The NO FAKES Act, which would create one, stalled in the Senate at the end of September; our earlier article explains. If you find an AI copy of your voice or songs:

Save proof: the link, screenshots, play counts, dates and how you found it.
Report it on the platform. Spotify, for example, says its impersonation policy covers AI voice clones and other unauthorized vocal impersonation.
Register your songs. In the U.S., a civil suit over a U.S. work generally cannot start until the copyright claim is registered (17 U.S.C. 411(a)). Statutory damages and attorney's fees are generally unavailable for infringement that began before registration, unless you register within three months of first publication (17 U.S.C. 412). Our year-end registration checklist walks through it.
Ask a music attorney which state's law applies to you and whether a claim is worth bringing.

If you want to record songs written by others, permission is the clean path. Browse songs for artists. Every Starchild license comes with a certificate naming the writers, which anyone can check at /verify.

What is pending (as of November 8)

Suno's response in court to either complaint. The reports reviewed show none yet and no hearing date.
A ruling on Suno's motion to dismiss the Isbell class action.
Any ruling on how the ELVIS Act applies to an AI music generator.

Sources

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