UMG and Sony file second Suno suit, calling v6 fruit of the same poisoned tree

Second D. Mass. complaint, 18 September. Not a ruling

On Friday 18 September 2026, UMG Recordings and Capitol, together with Sony Music Entertainment and its affiliated labels, filed a second copyright complaint against Suno, Inc. in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts (No. 1:26-cv-14275). Music Business Worldwide, Variety, and Bloomberg Law reported the same day. The complaint alleges unauthorized copying of 60,202 of the plaintiffs’ sound recordings. There is no judgment, injunction, or damages award. Plaintiffs demand a jury trial.

The v6-suite claim and Suno’s denial. $9B is a statutory-maximum theory

The new allegation centers on v6, v6 Wild, and v6 Mini, launched 9 September. Suno CPO Jack Brody told MBW at launch that v6 was trained entirely from scratch and that the data “doesn’t include data from Universal or Sony.” The complaint answers that the new suite is still “the fruit of the same poisoned tree,” via prior-model outputs, user preference signals, and knowledge distillation (a student model trained to reproduce a predecessor teacher). “Training a ‘new’ model on the outputs of an infringing model does not eliminate the infringement; it launders it,” it states. Those are allegations, not findings.

The complaint also claims circumvention of YouTube’s anti-download measures under 17 U.S.C. §1201(a). It seeks statutory damages up to $150,000 per work for willful infringement (§504(c)) and up to $2,500 per circumvention act (§1203(c)(3)(A)). MBW notes that 60,202 times the copyright cap is a theoretical maximum of just over $9 billion, and the circumvention cap would add roughly $150 million. That is not awarded damages. A Suno spokesperson told Variety the claims are “fundamentally flawed on both the facts and the law,” and that v6 was trained on licensed partner content, community creations and preference signals, and the team’s accumulated learnings, in partnership with WMG, BMG, and Believe.

Minimal context only. 30 September is the earlier case’s discovery close

The June 2024 case (No. 1:24-cv-11611, Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV) covers 560 works. Plaintiffs asked to add 61,026 recordings; the judge denied that amendment on 18 August 2026 and said they could bring a separate suit. Fact discovery in the earlier case closes around 30 September 2026. That deadline is background, not this filing.

The split for commercial producers

For producers shipping Suno output to YouTube, games, or streams, this complaint’s line is not “a licensed new model is a clean slate.” That is not a ruling.

• Tool choice: do not tell clients v6 / Wild / Mini is a clean slate because it is licensed. The complaint names the three models together.
• Distribution: even if Believe / TuneCore may treat V6-onward as eligible to distribute, UMG/Sony’s poisoned-tree theory is a separate claim. A distributor green light is not clearance from those two companies.
• Rights records: keep export logs that name v6, Wild, Mini, or an older model. The complaint does not carve Mini out.
• Licensed new model ≠ clean slate: WMG (November 2025), BMG (12 August), and Believe (8 September) training licenses do not, on this complaint’s theory, cut the lineage if prior outputs and preference signals trained v6.

Where Kominami sits

This note does not change Kominami’s site license. It is a public-record summary, not legal advice. Primary sources do not support “v6 means UMG/Sony are cleared” or “a second suit means every v6 track is illegal.”