SOCAN sues AI music company Suno over 150 copied songs

SOCAN, the Canadian collecting society, has sued Suno for copyright infringement, filing its statement of claim in the Federal Court of Canada on September 2.

It is the third collecting society to take the AI company to court, and the first to file since one of them won: Germany's GEMA beat Suno at the Munich Regional Court on July 31, a first-instance ruling the company has said it may appeal. Denmark's Koda brought its case in Copenhagen City Court in November 2025 and that action is still live.

The Canadian claim takes a different route. GEMA and Koda went after the copying that trained the model. SOCAN is suing over what comes out of it, and over the act of streaming those outputs to users in Canada. "This case is about a simple principle: technological innovation does not displace copyright," the 42-page claim opens.

It lists 150 tracks on Suno's platform that SOCAN says are identical or substantially similar to songs in its repertoire, calling them the tip of the iceberg. Five side-by-side comparisons are posted publicly, covering Tom Cochrane's "Life is a Highway," Avril Lavigne's "Sk8er Boi," K. Maro's "Femme Like U," Alexisonfire's "Passing Out in America" and Daniel Balavoine's "S.O.S. d'un terrien en detresse."

Two examples get note-by-note treatment. SOCAN says a user fed Suno nothing but the lyrics of Joni Mitchell's "Both Sides Now" and got back a track virtually identical in melody, harmony and words. With "Sk8er Boi," it says the platform returned a near copy with some lyrics swapped into Korean, under the title "Sk8er Boi (K-pop remix) (Avril Lavigne cover)."

The remedies asked for are large. SOCAN wants damages plus any profits, or in the alternative statutory damages of CAD $20,000 per song, the Canadian ceiling for commercial infringement, which across the 150 outputs and 137 songs would come to about CAD $2.74 million. It separately seeks CAD $10 million in punitive damages. Neither figure caps anything, since the society reserves the right to add songs.

It also wants two injunctions: one barring infringement of the songs named, and a second, what Canadian law calls a wide injunction, covering every work SOCAN represents now or in future, a catalogue the claim describes as virtually all copyright-protected music in current use in Canada.

"SOCAN has a responsibility to act when the rights of music creators and publishers are put at risk," said chief executive Jennifer Brown. Chief legal officer Andrea Kokonis said the objective is to establish that AI companies must respect the rights of creators and publishers. The society says it has never issued Suno a licence or received a royalty from it.

Suno now faces claims on several fronts. Jason Isbell and David Lowery filed a proposed class action in Boston on August 31 built on identity rather than copyright, and the company is defending copyright suits from Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Round Hill and independent artists, while signing licensing deals with Warner Music Group and BMG.