Elvis, Eminem, and Suno: When Rock History Meets AI

Two lawsuits filed on Friday, November 7, 2026, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California place the AI music generator Suno at the center of a legal battle that could reshape the boundaries of artificial intelligence and the creative industry. On one side, Elvis Presley Enterprises (EPE), the group that controls the rights to one of the most iconic voices in music history. On the other, Eight Mile Style, the publishing company that controls approximately 269 compositions by Marshall Mathers III, better known as Eminem. Both cases are not merely about royalties — they are attempts to answer a question that no existing law resolves completely: who is responsible when an AI reproduces an artist's identity without authorization?

The two complaints

The Elvis Presley Enterprises case is, in many ways, the more ambitious filing. At 51 pages, it alleges violation of the ELVIS Act (Ensuring Likeness Voice and Image Security Act), a Tennessee state law from 2024 that prohibits AI companies from cloning singers' voices. The EPE also accuses Suno of copying 859 compositions listed in Appendix F of the complaint to train its model, along with allegations of violations of Sections 1201 and 1202 of the U.S. Copyright Act — relating to technological protection measures and rights management information.

The Eight Mile Style case is narrower in scope but no less significant. The Detroit-based publishing company, which controls the publication rights to approximately 270 of the rapper's songs, accuses Suno of reproducing those compositions without authorization. Unlike the EPE case, Eminem is not an individual party to the lawsuit — Six Feet Under Records, also affiliated with the publisher, appears as a co-plaintiff. A representative for the rapper did not respond to Variety's request for comment.

What the ELVIS Act means for AI

The ELVIS Act, signed into law in March 2024, is a relatively new piece of legislation that creates a previously non-existent legal pathway for prosecuting AI voice cloning. The legal theory behind the EPE's case is elegant: because Elvis Presley died a Tennessee resident, the state's personality rights law applies even in a California federal court, argue the authors of the complaint. The filing alleges that Suno allows users to generate songs in Presley's voice simply by typing his name into the "Create" field, and that the AI would produce outputs based on the singer's "distinctive and recognizable vocal timbre."

The case also raises an unresolved legal question: does Presley qualify as a member of the armed forces under Tennessee law, having served in the U.S. Army from March 1958 to March 1960? The answer matters because the ELVIS Act protects the personality rights of people who died after having served in the military — a provision that applies specifically to Presley.

What Suno says

Suno has not filed a formal defense yet, but issued a statement to Variety defending its position: the company does not allow "unauthorized use of an artist's work" and explicitly prohibits the use of "specific artist names and songs" in the generator. The company also says it works with third-party companies to screen for "potential misuse." The defense, however, runs into a practical difficulty: if the system blocks artist names, but still allows prompts like "aggressive rap, rapid-fire flow, dark humor, male rapper, horrorcore, intense beat" to generate tracks indistinguishable from the artist's style, the protection may be insufficient.

A context of lawsuits

These cases do not occur in a vacuum. Suno already faces an expanding docket of lawsuits. Earlier in 2026, Sony Music Entertainment and Universal Music Group filed suit alleging that its v6 models still infringed copyrighted material. Reservoir Media also filed a case against Suno for reproducing 1,050 compositions in its model training. And the EPE had already sued Anthropic in October, alleging $41 million in damages for training AI models on Presley's works without permission — a tactic now repeated with Suno.

An important distinction between these cases and those filed by the major labels: the EPE and Eight Mile Style are publishing rights holders (musical compositions), not sound recording owners. This means their allegations revolve around who wrote the music and lyrics — not a specific recording — raising different questions about what exactly constitutes "training" on protected material.

What's at stake

If the EPE wins, the ELVIS Act could become the model for state legislation on voice cloning nationwide. If Eight Mile Style prevails, the court would have to decide whether vague prompts that produce "style" outputs constitute copyright infringement of composition — a precedent that could affect not just Suno, but any AI content generation platform.

Warner Music Group, incidentally, dropped its lawsuit against Suno in 2025 and closed a licensing deal — showing that not all rights holders want to litigate. The question for 2027: will AI music generation still be the same market we know today?

Sources: Variety, Billboard, Engadget

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