The Canadian music rights organization is suing the AI music generation platform for allegedly infringing on at least 150 songs within SOCAN's repertoire, including Avril Lavigne's "Sk8er Boi," Tom Cochrane's "Life is a Highway," Joni Mitchell's "Both Sides Now" and more.
The Canadian music rights organization has filed a legal claim against the AI music generation app, claiming that it has unlawfully infringed on its members' work. SOCAN is asking the court to "require Suno to comply with copyright law, stop making infringing outputs available" and "respect the rights of music creators and publishers whenever their works are used."
SOCAN has put forward a subset of 150 AI outputs generated by Suno that largely or fully infringe on material from its member rightsholders, dating back to Suno's introduction to the Canadian market in 2023.
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“Suno launched its service in Canada [in December 2023] without having contacted us, without seeking consent from SOCAN, and any discussions we've had after that launch have not proved fruitful," Andrea Kokonis, chief legal officer and general counsel of SOCAN, tells Billboard Canada. "We want to ensure that our members are paid when their songs are used, and we do want to send a clear signal to AI services that there are consequences when they use music without permission.”
Along with the lawsuit, SOCAN has launched a special website showcasing a number of Suno outputs side-by-side with the songs they are allegedly infringing on. Those include major hits like Tom Cochrane's "Life is a Highway," Avril Lavigne's "Sk8er Boi" and even post-hardcore band Alexisonfire's "Passing Out In America." Listen here.
"Creators were never asked, never informed, and never given the chance to say no," the site reads.
Kokonis explains that the lawsuit's goal is to double down on existing copyright protection, showing that the laws that protect songwriters, composers, and music publishers apply equally in the AI era as they have before. Given the direct competition between outputs generated by Suno and the music created by human artists, it is important for songwriters to be fairly compensated.
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“SOCAN has a responsibility to act when the rights of music creators and publishers are put at risk. The evidence shows that the Suno platform has generated and streamed outputs that copy works in our repertoire, and that cannot go unchallenged,” says Jennifer Brown, CEO of SOCAN. “Innovation can’t come at the expense of human creativity. The future of music must belong to the people who make it.”
SOCAN has continuously voiced its defense of copyrighted work and artists' intellectual property during the rise of AI, notably by leading a nationwide campaign against unlicensed AI music, which was supported by artists like Sarah McLachlan and Mac DeMarco, and speaking at the House of Commons to highlight the importance of defending copyrighted human material. Simultaneously, the company has embraced AI as a tool, recently partnering with Musical AI as a technology partner to help identify AI-generated outputs and properly attribute credit to songwriters and composers when their work is used by AI.
“We do want the message to be clear, songwriters and composers are not afraid of AI," Kokonis explains. "In fact, music creators are often early adopters of any new technology. In the case of songwriters and composers, many are already using AI as a creative tool and exploring its possibilities, but they need to be paid when their songs are used.”
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Suno is under legal fire by numerous labels and companies around the world, a snowball effect that has picked up over the past week. On Monday (Aug. 31), Mexican music label and publisher Gerencia 360 Music sued Suno for also allegedly ripping off songs from its own database to make AI-generated songs, followed by a group of artists led by acclaimed singer-songwriter Jason Isbell, who sued on Tuesday (Sept. 1). American publishing company Round Hill Music is also seeking up to $1 billion in damages from Suno and Anthropic in a new lawsuit filed last week on similar claims, while Universal and Sony were granted permission to add allegations of stream ripping to their blockbuster lawsuit.
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The landmark lawsuit in Canada follows major legal action from labels in the U.S., as well as SOCAN's sister societies overseas. In late 2025, Suno signed a licensing deal with Warner Music Group (WMG) after initially being sued by the label in late 2024 as part of a $500 million joint copyright lawsuit with Universal Music Group (UMG) and Sony, who are still battling Suno in court. Last month, the German court ruled in favour of the rights representation society GEMA, which sued Suno for directly infringing on the copyrights of recorded material within its database, including hits like "Rasputin" by Boney M.
