Suno Fires Back Against Apple’s Subpoena Opposition, Doubling Down on Its Push for Information About ‘Current License Negotiations,’ ‘Anti-AI Deal Terms,’ and More

Suno is doubling down on its Apple subpoena push, arguing that the details being looked for– about Apple Music’s significant label licensing talks,”anti-AI offer terms,”and more– is main to its reasonable usage and copyright abuse arguments.

The AI music platform took objective at Apple’s movement to quash in a 24-page opposition filing the other day. As we broke down previously today, the clash represents among numerous subpoena conflicts originating from the high-stakes UMG v. Suno legal fight.

Proof– referring in big part to numerous brand-new however as-yet-uncontested non-party subpoenas– recommends that extra face-offs are upcoming.

Keeping the concentrate on the Suno v. Apple fight, nevertheless, the latter slammed the deposition subpoena as worrying “subjects that are unimportant, overbroad, and out of proportion to the requirements of the case.”

Furthermore, the exact same movement to quash called out Suno’s supposed effort to get “the extremely personal, exclusive details of Apple for which” the AI upstart “has actually not shown a requisite requirement.”

According to both sides, which spilled lots of ink evaluating the subpoena dispute, back-and-forth witness and document-production settlements have actually been happening throughout much of 2026.

The brief variation is that the existing problem apparently relates to “4 customized deposition subjects” for which Suno is looking for testament from Apple Music brass.

As at first highlighted, stated subjects consist of Apple Music’s present licensing settlements with Universal Music and Sony Music in addition to any “expert system efforts” gone over therein.

In addition, Suno is targeting info about the DSP’s forecasted business practicality without the majors’ brochures; the occurrence of and normal reaction to streaming scams on Apple Music; and all interactions in between Apple Music and the prosecuting majors about the case and Suno itself, “with the understanding that Agents of the Plaintiffs (e.g., the RIAA) remain in scope.”

Back to Suno’s quash-motion opposition, the accused framed the details as distinctively readily available through Apple, covered “by a robust protective order,” and pertinent to its reasonable usage defense.

In a nutshell– and as we formerly checked out in higher information– the 4th reasonable usage aspect worries the effect of the usage on the marketplace for and worth of the operate in concern.

And the method Suno sees the circumstance, Apple Music’s exact AI agreement terms, consisting of “things like ensured minimum royalties (which are paid despite whether AI material is or is not present in the market) and legal arrangements that particularly leave out AI-generated material from the royalty swimming pool,” are for that reason essential here.

Less extensively talked about is Suno’s copyright abuse defense, or the position that the non-Warner majors “‘have actually taken part in anticompetitive activities that extend an illegal monopoly over the production and commercialization of music.'”

On this front, streaming scams is extremely pertinent due to the fact that Universal Music and Sony Music “invoke it to validate their efforts to avoid competitors from non-infringing music material, conduct that is at the heart of Suno’s copyright abuse defense,” according to the legal text.

“The core of Suno’s copyright abuse defense is that Plaintiffs utilize their copyright monopoly and ‘need to have’ brochure as a cudgel to extract broad, anti-AI concessions from DSPs,” the submitting celebration included, continuing to highlight the resulting significance of “settlements to limit Apple’s capability to use AI-generated material, or to guide towards lower-cost material.”

With that, all eyes are on additional filings from Apple and, obviously, the matter’s December 1st hearing. Individually, in the middle of a subpoena argument of their own, Suno and the MLC have actually proposed a schedule that would set action due dates into mid-November.

Furthermore, as of the other day, DistroKid has up until November 4th to officially oppose Universal Music’s movement to force compliance with a various subpoena.