Round Hill Music Sues Suno, Anthropic for Copyright Infringement, Seeking Up to $1 Billion in Damages

Round Hill Music, the independent publisher behind copyrights for Bonnie Tyler’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart” and the Goo Goo Dolls’ “Iris,” has escalated its dispute with artificial intelligence companies to the courtroom. The firm, which manages a catalog of more than 10,000 compositions, filed suit in a California federal court against Suno and Anthropic, alleging that both companies scraped hundreds of its songs without authorization to train their AI systems. The complaint charges that this activity violates the Copyright Act, as the tracks were used in their entirety as raw material for machine-learning processes.

While the initial filing lists 500 songs, Round Hill has indicated that this figure will expand considerably once an amended complaint is submitted. The publisher contends that at least 10,000 of its works were used without permission, and it is pursuing damages that could reach into the “hundreds of millions of dollars,” with the potential to approach or exceed $1 billion. “We are not against artificial intelligence,” CEO Josh Gruss said in a statement. “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. Licensing isn’t an obstacle to innovation – it is there to protect the legal owners of the raw material, their property.” Neither Suno nor Anthropic responded to immediate requests for comment.

This legal action is far from the first confrontation between these AI firms and the music industry. Suno, a generative audio platform that lets users craft songs from text prompts, has already faced lawsuits from all three major labels—Warner Music Group, Universal Music Group, and Sony Music—though it did secure a settlement with Warner last year. Just last week, Suno also inked a licensing arrangement with BMG, a company that itself sued Anthropic earlier this year over what it called “widespread and systematic infringement” tied to unlicensed use of its recordings. Anthropic, the developer of the Claude chatbot and now valued at over a trillion dollars, has become a recurring target for copyright holders wary of unapproved exploitation of their works.

Round Hill, however, seems determined to avoid settlement talks. The company is demanding a jury trial, a move that signals its intention to litigate the matter fully rather than pursue an out-of-court resolution. “The question in these cases is not complicated,” said Richard S. Busch, the attorney representing Round Hill, in a statement. Busch, who previously won the landmark “Blurred Lines” case against Robin Thicke on behalf of the Marvin Gaye estate, added: “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. There is nothing fair about that use, and we look forward to making our arguments to the Court and in front of a jury.”

The broader legal environment remains fluid, with no definitive higher-court ruling yet on whether AI training on copyrighted material constitutes fair use or infringement. Legal experts suggest that cases like this could serve as a bellwether, potentially shaping how future AI systems are built and what responsibilities developers bear toward content creators. For Suno and Anthropic, already navigating a labyrinth of litigation and licensing negotiations across the music sector, Round Hill’s push for a jury trial adds yet another layer of uncertainty—and raises the stakes for an industry still grappling with the boundaries of innovation and ownership.