AI music company Suno announced on Wednesday the Suno v6 model family, which the company says was developed using licensed data from music labels and distributors including Warner Music Group, BMG and Believe.
The release arrives amid multiple lawsuits against the startup. Record labels have accused Suno of training its music-generating models on copyrighted material. Suno reached a settlement with Warner Music Group last year, and struck a deal with BMG last month.
Suno said the Suno v6 models were not trained on the same data used for earlier versions. The new family is being released in three variants:
- Suno v6 (base): available to paying users, described as reliable and steerable for controlled outputs.
- Suno v6 wild: an experimental model for paying users intended for ideation and producing unexpected results.
- Suno v6 mini: a faster version available to all users.
The company plans to retire its older models over time.
New creative and editing features
Suno says the v6 lineup provides greater flexibility. Users can edit a portion of a song using a prompt or a lyric fragment, and can use text, images or video as references when creating tracks. The models can isolate an instrument from a sample and use it to build a new beat.
Suno also intends to add features that enable remixing of songs, contingent on artists opting into a new program the company is setting up with music labels to allow Suno to use their works for AI-generated features. Jack Brody, Suno’s chief product officer, said derivative works can create more revenue opportunities for rights holders and artists. “I think the music ecosystem and our partners are always looking for ways to create more revenue opportunities for their rights holders and artists. So a big part of this release is creating additional revenue streams there,” Brody told TechCrunch.
Moderation, watermarking and download limits
Last month Suno said it plans to add a watermark to songs generated on its platform, and it recently introduced new download limits tied to account tiers. The company suggested these measures can help address broader ecosystem challenges such as streaming fraud and mass export/uploading to distributors with low intent, while noting that distributors and platforms ultimately govern what content appears on their services.
Ongoing litigation and prior admission
Suno remains subject to lawsuits from labels including Sony and Universal Music Group, from artists such as Jason Isbell, and from users alleging the company neglected security in pursuit of profits. The model announcement followed a separate admission the previous day that Suno had used YouTube videos to train some of its models.
Funding
According to PitchBook data, Suno has raised more than $819 million in funding to date.
In sum, Suno v6 represents a shift toward licensed training data and new creative tools, but the company continues to face legal disputes and scrutiny over its data sources and platform governance.
