The Lawsuit

The Recording Industry Association of America sued Suno AI for copyright infringement in 2024. Their argument was that Suno had used copyrighted music to train its AI system without permission. This argument was correct. (This is not the part of the story that becomes complicated.)

The lawsuit generated news coverage. The news coverage generated curiosity. The curiosity generated downloads. This week, Suno became the number one most downloaded music app on the Apple App Store. The App Store also contains Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music, and the combined catalogs of the companies that filed the lawsuit. Suno is now more downloaded than all of them.

(The RIAA also sued Udio, another AI music startup, using the same legal theory. Udio's position in the App Store rankings is being watched closely by people who now understand what a lawsuit does to awareness.)

The record labels wanted their music protected. What they could not protect was the information that their catalogs were worth imitating. That information was the lawsuit. Suno's ranking is what people did with it.

Suno did not issue a statement about reaching number one. This was wise. The appropriate statement would have been difficult to phrase without thanking someone.