Round Hill is Suing Suno and Anthropic, and Isn't Looking to Settle
- Martina
- 24 August 2026, Monday
It seems that Suno and Anthropic are finding themselves even deeper in the weeds when it comes to copyright and AI. Round Hill Music, a prominent independent American music publishing firm, has filed copyright infringement lawsuits against both companies – and, as it has made very clear, it isn’t looking to settle either case.
Round Hill Takes Suno and Anthropic to Court
As Reuters first reported, the lawsuits were filed on August 17 and involve six plaintiffs, including Round Hill Music LP and five affiliated funds and holding companies. Together, they own or control, in whole or in part, 14,364 musical compositions and 16,873 sound recordings.
According to the complaints, Round Hill Music alleges Suno and Anthropic committed direct copyright infringement under the Copyright Act. The publisher alleges that Anthropic used lyrics from affected songs to train its chatbot, Claude, while Suno allegedly used the same songs to train its AI-powered music generation system. The lawsuits also allege circumvention of access controls and removal of copyright management information under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).
The lawsuit against Suno also names Bright Data Ltd. and Bright Data Inc. as defendants. Round Hill alleges that the companies provided tools that Suno used to scrape music files from digital platforms, and that these tools helped circumvent access control and remove copyright management information.
Each lawsuit includes an exhibit of 500 compositions, described as “a prioritized bellwether.” A bellwether case is essentially a representative case that can help establish how similar claims may be handled. Among these works are Iris by the Goo Goo Dolls, I Got You (I Feel Good) by James Brown, and Total Eclipse of the Heart, written by Jim Steinman and performed by Bonnie Tyler.
Each complaint reportedly seeks statutory damages of up to $150,000 per work that was “willfully infringed.” If Round Hill succeeds in establishing infringement across the works included in the cases, the damages in each lawsuit could reach “hundreds of millions of dollars and potentially approach or conceivably exceed $1 billion.”
And according to Round Hill, those 500 works are only the beginning. The company says it plans to amend both cases so that they cover “potentially ten thousand or more” compositions.
“We are not against artificial intelligence. We are against the idea that you can build a business worth billions on top of other people’s creative work and pay the creators nothing,” stated Round Hill Music founder and CEO Josh Gruss.
“Licensing isn’t an obstacle to innovation – it is there to protect the legal owners of the raw material, their property. As an independent music company, we have the freedom and obligation to say that plainly and to act on it.”
Round Hill Music Has No Intention to Settle
As noted at the beginning of the article, lawsuits against them are not uncharted waters for either Suno or Anthropic.
Suno was first sued by the major labels in June 2024, and while Warner Music Group later settled with the AI music generator and entered into a licensing deal, Universal Music Group (UMG) and Sony Music remain involved in active litigation. Suno is also facing a separate case filed by Denmark’s rights management society, Koda. In addition, at the end of July 2026, the Munich Regional Court ruled against the company in a lawsuit brought by the German collecting society GEMA. Suno is currently weighing whether to appeal the verdict. More recently, Suno reached a licensing agreement with BMG, making it another major rights holder to pursue licensing rather than continued litigation.
Anthropic has faced its own fair share of legal disputes. The company settled one of the major copyright cases against it in September 2025, agreeing to pay $1.5 billion to a group of authors to resolve a class-action lawsuit. It is also currently facing three lawsuits from music rights holders. One case brought by Concord, UMPG, and ABKCO reportedly concerns more than 20,000 songs, with the plaintiffs seeking billions of dollars in damages. BMG has separately sued Anthropic over hundreds of compositions.
What distinguishes Round Hill Music from some of the other plaintiffs, however, is its upfront rejection of a potential settlement with either defendant. To support this stance, the publishing company has also deliberately selected legal counsel with an emphasis on taking the cases to trial rather than negotiating a settlement.
“We are privileged to act as stewards of some of the greatest musical works of our time, and we answer to the writers and artists who created them,” emphasized Gruss.
“We intend to take these cases to trial and to hold these companies accountable, and we will not accept a resolution that leaves songwriters and artists deprived of their rightful share of compensation.”
As reported by MBW, Round Hill appointed Richard S. Busch, a lawyer known for his work as a trial attorney, to represent it in the cases. Busch previously represented Marvin Gaye’s family in the landmark Blurred Lines copyright case. Both complaints demand a jury trial.
Busch himself has also made Round Hill’s position in the case clear. “The question in these cases is not complicated. Copyrighted works have been used to build multi-billion dollar businesses, and in the case of Anthropic, a company now valued at more than a trillion dollars, while the songwriters and publishers who created the foundations of that value have received nothing,” he said.
“There is nothing fair about that use, and we look forward to making our arguments to the Court and in front of a jury,” Busch added.
For now, Round Hill is taking a noticeably different approach from rights holders who have sought licensing deals or ultimately opted for them as part of a lawsuit settlement. Whether that position ultimately leads to a trial, a legal precedent, or an eventual settlement remains to be seen. But so far, Round Hill is not interested in simply putting a price on the table and walking away.
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Martina is a Berlin-based music writer and digital content specialist. She started playing the violin at age six and spent ten years immersed in classical music. Today, she writes about all things music, with a particular interest in the complexities of the music business, streaming, and artist fairness.
