Analysis
Suno turned off its own AI models this week. The company launched three new systems -- Suno v6, v6-wild and v6-mini -- and said none of them reuse the training data behind its prior models, TechCrunch reported. Suno v6-mini is free to all users; the full v6 and the more experimental v6-wild are gated behind a paid tier with more editing control.
The new models are trained on catalog Suno now actually has licenses for, from three named rights holders:
- Warner Music Group -- settled its copyright suit against Suno last year and is now a licensing partner.
- BMG -- struck a licensing deal with Suno last month.
- Believe -- the independent-label distributor rounds out the three named catalog partners.
“Suno's funding history: - Total raised -- more than $819 million.”
Suno chief product officer Jack Brody said the release is meant to open "additional revenue streams" for the labels and artists whose catalog trained the new models, paying them for derivative works generated on the platform. Pulse has previously covered Suno's fundraising and litigation history as the company built out its catalog-licensing strategy.
What licensing doesn't fix: Sony Music and Universal Music Group have not settled with Suno and are still litigating the original claim that the company trained its first models on copyrighted recordings without permission or payment. Musician Jason Isbell is separately suing, and a group of users has sued Suno over how it handled a security incident. Suno's funding history:
- Total raised -- more than $819 million.
- Latest round -- a $400 million Series D in June.
- Current valuation -- $5.4 billion, up from $2.45 billion seven months earlier.
Suno isn't the only AI music company retreating to licensed training data under legal pressure. Udio settled with Universal Music Group in October 2025 and is rebuilding a UMG-licensed platform due out this year, while Sony and Warner keep litigating against it separately. ElevenLabs skipped the fight-then-settle pattern altogether, launching ElevenLabs Music in May on catalog licensed upfront from Merlin Network and Kobalt Music Group and marketing every output as commercially cleared from day one.
