The AI copyright wars just had their biggest week yet, and a music publisher you’ve probably never heard of fired the loudest shots. Reservoir Media filed twin lawsuits on October 21 against Suno and Anthropic, accusing both companies of building their AI businesses on 1,903 songs they never paid for.

The combined damages sought: nearly $340 million.

Both cases landed in the same courthouse — the US District Court for the Northern District of California — and both were filed by the same lawyer, Richard S. Busch of Adams & Reese. Busch is the litigator who won the famous “Blurred Lines” copyright case for Marvin Gaye’s estate, and he has been on a tear this month: his firm already filed near-identical suits for Round Hill Music against Suno and Anthropic, plus one for Gerencia 360 against Suno.

One publisher, two AI companies, one playbook

The Suno lawsuit is the bigger of the two. Reservoir says the AI music startup copied 1,050 compositions it owns or controls to train its models, and that Suno’s $10-a-month service then lets users generate music based on those works. The complaint puts the three counts at more than $186 million: up to $150,000 per willfully infringed work, plus $2.63 million for allegedly circumventing access controls and $26.25 million for allegedly removing copyright-management information.

The Anthropic suit targets the lyrics of 853 compositions that Reservoir says were used to train Claude, and that the chatbot has reproduced or turned into derivative works in its outputs. There, Reservoir is pushing for $127.95 million in infringement damages — the filing claims “Claude has created infringing output for all 853 of the Works, and likely every song in Reservoir’s catalog” — plus another $23.5 million on DMCA claims.

The Suno suit covers 1,050 songs and the Anthropic suit 853, including Joni Mitchell’s “Big Yellow Taxi” and “Both Sides Now,” Evanescence’s “Bring Me to Life” and Miami Sound Machine’s “Conga.” Reservoir’s catalog spans tens of thousands of compositions across rock, pop, country, blues, R&B, hip hop and alternative, including works tied to Joni Mitchell, Johnny Cash and Madonna.

That’s a lot of money for lyrics.

Suno’s licensing deals turned against it

The most uncomfortable part for Suno may be that the complaint quotes its own progress back at it. Over the past year, Suno settled with Warner Music Group and signed licensing deals with BMG and Believe. Reservoir argues those agreements prove something Suno doesn’t want admitted: “there is a functioning market for licensing music and sound recordings for training data.”

In other words, if Suno can pay Warner, BMG and Believe now, it could have paid everyone from the start. Busch framed the strategy as “infringe now” and settle cheaply later — build the model first on unlicensed songs, then negotiate from a position of strength once the product has commercial value.

Universal Music Group and Sony Music are still suing Suno over the same underlying issue, joined by smaller publishers like Round Hill, Denmark’s KODA, Canada’s SOCAN and indie artists including Tony Justice and David Lowery. Suno’s new v6 models, which the company says were trained on licensed material, don’t erase the question of what went into the earlier ones.

Reservoir is also asking the court to go beyond outputs and reach into the machinery itself: the Suno complaint seeks impoundment or destruction of alleged unauthorized copies, expressly including material in training datasets, internal repositories, model weights and server infrastructure. If a judge grants that, the rights question stops being about what an AI produced and becomes about what was put into the system in the first place.

Anthropic’s crowded docket gets one more case

Anthropic’s response came fast. “We disagree with the allegations and intend to defend this case vigorously,” a company spokesperson said. Suno declined to comment.

The case slots into a docket that keeps getting heavier. Anthropic already faces ongoing music-industry litigation, and the Reservoir suit leans on findings from the Bartz case — the June 2025 ruling in which Judge William Alsup wrote, “There is no carveout, however, from the Copyright Act for AI companies.” Anthropic, valued at a sum that dwarfs the damages sought here, is also heading toward a public listing, which makes every new lawsuit a footnote investors will read.

Reservoir CEO Golnar Khosrowshahi put it bluntly in a statement to Music Business Worldwide: “Reservoir’s business is rooted in our responsibility to protect the rights and creative legacies of our songwriters, artists, estates, and partners, and when we believe their work has been exploited without authorization, we will hold AI platforms legally accountable to ensure those rights are upheld.” The complaint goes further, accusing both companies of having “built their entire business model based on copyright infringement at a scale never seen before.”

Why this matters

Eight new AI copyright suits in a single week is a record, and the running total now stands at 156, with projections of 174 to 181 by year’s end. The Reservoir double-filing shows the strategy maturing: pick one law firm, one courthouse, one legal theory, and hit every AI company on the same sheet of music. If enough publishers pile in, the licensing market Suno is now paying into stops being a choice and becomes the price of admission — for every model builder, not just the music ones.

Sources: Music Ally, Digital Music News, Music Business Worldwide, AI Parabellum, AI Weekly.

FAQ

Why is Reservoir Media suing Suno and Anthropic? Reservoir alleges both companies copied its copyrighted songs to train AI models without permission. The Suno suit covers 1,050 compositions allegedly used for AI music generation; the Anthropic suit covers 853 works whose lyrics were allegedly used to train Claude.

How much money is Reservoir seeking from Suno and Anthropic? Nearly $340 million combined. The Suno complaint seeks more than $186 million in damages, while the Anthropic suit seeks about $128 million for infringement plus another $23.5 million on DMCA claims.

Which songs are named in the Reservoir lawsuits? The filings name works including “Big Yellow Taxi,” “Ring of Fire” and “Papa Don’t Preach,” plus tracks by Glenn Miller, Kings of Leon, Evanescence, Joni Mitchell, Johnny Cash and Madonna.

What happens next in the Reservoir cases against Suno and Anthropic? Both cases are in the early pleading stage in the Northern District of California. Anthropic says it will defend the case vigorously, and the core fight will be over whether training AI on copyrighted songs is protected as fair use.