Suno v6 faces user backlash and new copyright lawsuit
Suno’s new v6 AI music models are facing criticism from users over audio quality, while Universal and Sony have filed a new copyright lawsuit.
Earlier this month, Suno launched its new v6 model. It was supposed to mark a new chapter for the platform, with the new generation developed alongside licensed music from Warner Music Group, BMG and Believe, replacing the older models in the process.
That shift marked a major moment for AI music generation. Now, just days after, the rollout has quickly been surrounded by controversy. Users are criticising the new models’ sound, while Universal Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment have launched another copyright lawsuit against the company.
Suno users are unhappy with v6’s sound
The first issue is coming from Suno’s own community.
As DMN reports, longtime users have been complaining that v6 produces music that sounds muffled, dull, generic and heavily compressed. Some users have also criticised buried vocals, a lack of high-end clarity and less convincing melodies and instrumentation.
Similar complaints have appeared across Reddit, with some users saying they prefer the older models and asking for them to be brought back.
The issue is particularly notable because the previous models have now been retired. That means users who built workflows around earlier versions cannot simply switch back if they prefer the sound.
There’s an interesting trade-off here. Suno’s move towards licensed training data addresses one of the biggest criticisms surrounding generative AI music, but some users believe the change has come at the expense of the output they were getting from the platform.
Universal and Sony launch another Suno lawsuit
While users debate whether v6 sounds better or worse, Suno is also facing another major legal challenge.
Universal Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment filed a second lawsuit against Suno on September 18 in the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts. The new complaint alleges that Suno copied 60,202 sound recordings without permission to train its AI models.
The size of that figure is significant. The new lawsuit follows an earlier case filed in 2024, which remains ongoing. The labels had previously sought to add more than 61,000 recordings to that case, but a judge declined to allow the expansion because it would delay the proceedings, leaving the labels to pursue the recordings through a separate complaint.
The latest lawsuit takes aim specifically at v6.
According to MBW, Suno has said that v6 was trained from scratch and does not use data from Universal or Sony. However, Universal and Sony argue that the new model may still have inherited information from earlier Suno models that were allegedly trained on unlicensed recordings.
The complaint alleges that Suno used outputs and preference data from its previous models when developing v6, alongside a process known as knowledge distillation. In simple terms, the labels argue that a newer model could learn from an older model’s behaviour, meaning that training a new system from those outputs does not necessarily remove the influence of the earlier training data.
AI music is entering a new phase
Suno’s v6 rollout was positioned as a step towards a more collaborative relationship between generative AI and the music industry. Instead, its first weeks have highlighted just how complicated that relationship remains.
The user backlash raises questions about whether licensed datasets can deliver the same results as the enormous datasets used by earlier AI models. The new lawsuit raises a different question: whether changing the training process is enough if a new model has learned from systems that are themselves alleged to have been trained on copyrighted recordings.
Neither question has a definitive answer yet.
What is becoming increasingly clear, though, is that AI music is moving into a more mature phase. Licensing, transparency, creator rights and the commercial use of AI-generated music are no longer side issues. They are becoming central to how these tools are built and how musicians decide whether to use them.