Elvis Presley Enterprises v. Suno: The ELVIS Act Voice-Cloning Lawsuit, Explained
The owners of Elvis Presley's name, image and music say Suno trained on 859 of their songs and lets people generate new tracks in Elvis's voice. Besides copyright, they sue under Tennessee's ELVIS Act, which can hold the company behind a voice-cloning tool liable. Nobody is suing Suno users in this case.
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Elvis Presley Enterprises sues Suno under the ELVIS Act
A 51-page complaint lands in San Francisco federal court as 3:26-cv-13398. It pleads the ELVIS Act, Tennessee's common-law right of publicity, direct copyright infringement, circumvention under DMCA Section 1201 and removal of copyright management information under Section 1202, with 47 recorded Suno outputs as exhibits.
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What is Elvis Presley Enterprises v. Suno about?
On November 6, 2026, the owners of Elvis Presley’s name, image and music sued Suno in the US District Court for the Northern District of California. The case is 3:26-cv-13398, and I covered the filing in my news piece on the Elvis and Eminem suits.
The complaint makes 2 kinds of claim. One is copyright: Suno copied 859 songs to train its model. The other is identity: Suno lets people generate new songs in Elvis’s voice.
Who is involved?
Elvis Presley Enterprises and ABG EPE IP LLC belong to Authentic Brands Group, which controls Presley’s name, image and likeness. Raleigh Music Publishing and several songwriter trusts join over the compositions. Their lawyer is Richard S. Busch of Adams & Reese, who also represents Round Hill, Gerencia 360, Reservoir and Eight Mile Style against Suno.
Suno is the AI music generator already facing the major labels, a German ruling in GEMA’s favor and Jason Isbell’s identity class action.
What are the claims?
- The ELVIS Act, a 2024 Tennessee law that protects a person’s voice and can make the maker of a cloning tool liable. The complaint puts these damages at over $50 million and asks for them to be tripled.
- Tennessee’s common-law right of publicity, which applies because Presley died a Tennessee resident.
- Direct copyright infringement over 859 works, at up to $150,000 each.
- Circumvention of YouTube’s download protection, at up to $2,500 per work.
- Removal of copyright management information, the credits and ownership data attached to a song, at up to $25,000 per work.
It also asks for an injunction, and for impoundment or destruction of every copy of the songs, including copies held in Suno’s model weights.
What to watch next
Suno’s first response is the next step, possibly a motion to dismiss like the one it filed against Isbell and Lowery. The ELVIS Act claim is the part to watch, because a ruling on it would be one of the first on whether a state voice law reaches an AI tool. Eminem’s publisher filed a separate case the same night, tracked in Eight Mile Style v. Suno.
Frequently asked questions
- Why is Tennessee's ELVIS Act being used against Suno in a California federal court?
- Elvis Presley died a Tennessee resident, so Tennessee law governs who controls his name, voice and likeness after his death. The case is filed in the Northern District of California, where several other publisher suits against Suno already sit, and the complaint pleads the Tennessee claims there alongside federal copyright claims.
- Which Suno outputs are exhibits in Elvis Presley Enterprises v. Suno?
- 47 recordings across 4 exhibits hosted on Vimeo. They include 'Elvis Presley - Blue Suede Sin Medley', 'Elvis in The Jailhouse Rock', which the complaint says had over 125,000 plays on Suno, versions of 'If I Can Dream', and 2 tracks called 'He Is Still The King' generated on October 7, 2026 from a lyric alone.
- How is Elvis Presley Enterprises v. Suno related to the Elvis Presley lawsuit against Anthropic?
- Both are brought by Authentic Brands Group's Elvis units and filed by the same lawyer, Richard S. Busch. The Anthropic case, filed on October 23, 2026, is about 274 songs and Claude's lyrics. The Suno case adds the ELVIS Act and Presley's voice, which the Anthropic case does not cover.