Universal and Sony can depose the ex-Menlo investor who said Suno replaced her Spotify listening

Universal Music Group and Sony Music can now put C.C. Gong under oath about one deleted post. On Monday, October 26, 2026, Magistrate Judge Paul G. Levenson granted their motion to serve a deposition subpoena on Gong, a former Principal at Suno investor Menlo Ventures, and to depose her within 30 days.

Here’s the post, as the labels quote it in their October 23 motion: “I’ve personally shifted most of my listening to Suno. I was so tired of Spotify giving me the same overplayed recommendations.”

The labels say that line “bears directly on the effect of Suno on the market for Plaintiffs’ copyrighted sound recordings, and thus on the fourth fair use factor.” That’s the factor where a court asks whether the copying replaces the original. So who is Gong, and what else did she write?

Who is C.C. Gong, and what did her deleted Suno post say?

Gong was a Principal at Menlo Ventures, the firm that led Suno’s $250 million Series C in November 2025 at a $2.45 billion valuation, according to Music Business Worldwide. Menlo was back as an existing investor in Suno’s $5.4 billion Series D in June 2026.

Her post congratulated Suno on reaching $300 million in annual recurring revenue with 2 million paid subscribers. Then it went a lot further than a congrats usually does: “When I’m in a specific mood, I don’t search for a song, I create it.” And: “Creation improves consumption.”

On February 26, Ed Newton-Rex, CEO of Fairly Trained, quoted it on X with a prediction: “This tweet, from Suno’s lead investor, will surely be used in court one day.” Gong deleted the post, so Newton-Rex shared the full text again. 8 months later, the labels filed a capture of that page as Exhibit B.

Music Business Worldwide flagged the same post back in March, in an open letter to Suno CEO Mikey Shulman: “Your own investor just told the world it is a replacement.”

How Universal and Sony ended up subpoenaing C.C. Gong instead of Menlo Ventures

The labels didn’t start with Gong. They started with her employer, and the declaration of their lawyer Joseph Aronsohn lays out how that went.

On September 24, Menlo’s lawyers said Menlo couldn’t get the information about Gong’s post. The labels answered in writing 2 days later: “Ms. Gong is a current Menlo employee, and a reasonable investigation to prepare Menlo’s designee requires only that Menlo ask her.” According to the motion, Menlo never disputed that.

Then on October 12, Menlo’s counsel told the labels Gong had left at the end of September. That was 12 days after fact discovery closed on everything except the labels’ YouTube stream-ripping claim, so a late deposition needed the court’s permission.

Suno didn’t fight it, but it got its position into the motion. It said it had “adhered to the deadlines in the Court’s Scheduling Order” and believes “those deadlines should bind all parties equally.” In exchange for Suno staying out of it, the labels offered not to oppose Suno noticing 1 extra deposition of its own.

Gong could still push back. Suno’s statement leaves room for “any objection Ms. Gong or Menlo Ventures may raise, including by motion to quash,” and on October 13 Menlo’s lawyers wrote that they were “working to confirm that we will represent Ms. Gong.”

So why does one investor’s listening habit matter this much?

Suno’s fair use defense and the fourth factor: does Suno replace the labels’ recordings?

The fourth fair use factor is the market test. Section 107 of the US Copyright Act lists 4 things a court weighs when someone says their copying was fair use, and number 4 is “the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.”

In plain words: if people listen to Suno songs instead of Universal and Sony recordings, the copying ate into the market for the originals. That’s market substitution, and it’s why “I’ve personally shifted most of my listening to Suno” reads like evidence to the labels.

Fair use is Suno’s main defense. Suno conceded in August 2024 that it trained on copyrighted recordings, and it argues the use is transformative.

Gong’s post is one piece of that fight. Both sides are subpoenaing companies outside the case for the numbers behind the same question.

The labels want DistroKid’s counts of likely AI uploads and Lightspeed’s investor files. Suno wants monthly play data from the MLC, and Apple is now fighting Suno’s subpoena for Apple Music royalty data.

On the current schedule, expert reports start on January 28, 2027, and dispositive motions, where a fair use ruling would come, are due June 22, 2027. On October 22, both sides asked Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV to move the deadline for third-party depositions already noticed from October 30 to November 20, 2026.