Apple has stepped into the biggest AI music lawsuit in the US, and it wants out. In a motion filed in federal court in Northern California on 13 October 2026 (US time), Apple asked a judge to quash a subpoena from Suno that seeks sworn testimony from an Apple witness about Apple Music’s deals with Universal Music Group and Sony Music, including how those deals treat AI-generated music.
Suno is being sued by Universal, Capitol Records and Sony for copyright infringement, and argues that training its models on recordings is fair use. Apple is not a party to that case. It says it has already handed over the relevant data and that Suno’s request goes too far. This is a dispute about evidence between companies. No one has been accused of wrongdoing, and nothing in the main case has been decided.
What Suno wants Apple to answer
According to Digital Music News, which reviewed the filings, Suno’s deposition subpoena lists topics that reach deep into Apple Music’s business. They include:
- whether Apple Music could remain commercially viable without the major labels’ catalogues;
- Apple’s licensing, royalty and generative AI negotiations with Universal and Sony;
- royalty calculation provisions and guaranteed minimum royalties, particularly any that distinguish between AI and non-AI content;
- “contractual provisions that limit” Apple Music’s “ability to preference or ‘steer’ toward lower-cost or no-cost content”;
- the prevalence of streaming fraud; and
- communications about Suno or the lawsuit.
Put simply, Suno is asking how the money flows between the biggest labels and one of the biggest streaming services, and whether those contracts already account for AI music. Suno’s defence rests partly on showing that AI music has not damaged the market for the labels’ recordings, and the economics of label–streamer deals are part of that picture.
Apple’s answer: we’ve already complied
Apple argues the subpoena is “irrelevant, overbroad, and disproportionate”, Digital Music News reports. Billboard reports that Apple has already complied with six document subpoenas from both sides of the case, providing “granular” data on how much Suno-generated music appears on its platform, along with details of how it detects and tags AI music. Billboard notes that this appears to have been enough for the labels.
“Apple has cooperated with both parties for more than a year, exchanging over 90 emails and having over 10 conferrals, to negotiate a reasonable scope of non-party discovery and to provide the relevant subset … And Apple has complied.” — Apple, in its motion to quash, as quoted by Digital Music News
Apple says the remaining topics seek highly confidential competitive information that, to the extent it matters, could be obtained from the parties themselves. Universal and Sony are on the other side of those same contracts. Apple has asked the court to quash the subpoena or, failing that, to grant a protective order limiting it.
Under the court docket, responses to Apple’s motion were due on 27 October and replies on 3 November (US time). Digital Music News reports that the motion is set to be heard on 1 December, and that Magistrate Judge Susan van Keulen recused herself from the matter on 21 October. When we checked the public docket on 28 October (Brisbane time), it did not yet show a response from Suno. Suno declined to comment to Billboard, and Apple did not respond to Billboard’s request for comment.
Part of a wider fight over streaming data
Apple is one of a growing list of outside companies pulled into the case. Billboard counts streaming services, a distributor, a royalty body and several of Suno’s investors among them, with discovery expected to run until mid-2027 before a judge rules on fair use.
Suno has separately moved to compel the Mechanical Licensing Collective (MLC), which administers mechanical royalties for US streaming, to hand over monthly play data from 2021 onwards for Amazon, Apple, Deezer, Pandora, SoundCloud, Spotify, Tidal and YouTube. Suno told the court that the data is “highly relevant to what actually occurred before and after AI-generated music arrived”, Digital Music News reports. The MLC has objected, saying it received objections to disclosure from affected streaming services.
The labels are pushing from the other direction. They have asked a New York court to make DistroKid hand over monthly counts of uploads its detection tool scored as likely AI-generated, together with their streams and royalties. They have also chased Suno’s investors, and this week won permission to depose a former Menlo Ventures principal over a deleted post about her listening habits, as we covered in Suno Lawsuit: Court Lets Labels Depose Ex-Menlo Exec Over Post.
Streaming services are already counting AI music themselves. Deezer said on 27 October that it has detected and excluded more than 42 million AI-generated tracks from its recommendations since January 2025 and tagged over 14 million albums. Spotify said last week that it had removed more than 50 million “slop and spam” tracks from recommendations this year, as we reported in Spotify’s AI update.
Why it matters
For artists and AI music creators
One of the four US fair use factors is “the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work”. Streaming data and royalty contracts are where that effect would show up. If label deals already pay differently for AI and non-AI music, or stop services from favouring cheaper tracks, that tells the court something about how AI music competes with human-made recordings. Whatever tools you use, keep a record of what you wrote, played or sang yourself, and be upfront about the AI involved.
For Australia
Apple Music is one of the main ways Australians stream music, and the outcome of the US AI cases is being watched in Canberra. Music publishers have urged the government to wait for those rulings before changing Australian copyright law, as we reported in AI copyright in Australia: publishers slam opt-out plan.
For the industry
Streaming services have mostly stayed out of the AI music lawsuits. That is getting harder. Their data on AI uploads, fraud and royalties has become central evidence, and Apple’s motion shows how far a big platform will go to keep its label contracts out of an AI company’s hands.
What happens next
Watch for Suno’s formal response, Apple’s reply due 3 November (US time), and the 1 December hearing. Elsewhere, the DistroKid and MLC data fights and Lightspeed’s motion to quash are still unresolved.
Following AI music on Dizy
Dizy is built on disclosure: artists declare whether a track is AI-assisted or AI-generated when they submit, and listeners decide what rises. See the Overall Top 40, browse New releases and AI artists, or submit your track. For more on the Suno case, read Suno Lawsuit: Labels Want Investor Lightspeed to Testify and Reservoir sues Suno and Anthropic.
Sources
Digital Music News: Suno files subpoena demands against Apple (26 October 2026)
Digital Music News: MLC, Apple Music and others face subpoenas amid UMG v. Suno (26 October 2026)
Digital Music News: Suno v. MLC subpoena dispute boils over (22 October 2026)
Deezer Newsroom: Deezer delivers second consecutive quarter of revenue growth (27 October 2026)
Cornell Law School LII: 17 U.S. Code § 107 – Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use
