All articles tagged with #rights of publicity
Musicians including Jason Isbell and David Lowery filed a class-action suit against Suno, alleging the AI platform uses artists’ names and distinctive traits to generate songs and imagery without consent, violating publicity rights (not just copyright) and seeking damages for a potential class of artists.
Country star Jason Isbell leads a class-action against Suno, alleging its AI music platform encodes musicians’ identities as tokens to generate identity-evocative songs, descriptions and images from prompts, violating rights of publicity and potentially representing a class of artists; Suno says the claims are meritless and that it blocks prompts for specific artists, though the lawsuit argues those safeguards can be bypassed.
Dua Lipa filed a California lawsuit accusing Samsung of using a photo of her on TV packaging without permission or compensation, asserting ownership of the image from a 2024 ACL performance and seeking at least $15 million in damages plus injunctive relief and legal costs under copyright, publicity rights, and trademark laws.
Major labels are in talks with Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music to remove recordings with AI-generated vocals imitating popular artists, citing violations of rights of publicity rather than copyright. Unlike the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, this arrangement appears to be voluntary. The use of soundalike vocals for creative purposes may be protected as free speech, and citing rights of publicity can be more complicated than copyright because they are matters of state law in the US, backed by limited legal precedent. Some artists have embraced the technology, while some executives have raised concerns that AI soundalikes could result in consumer confusion.