On Monday (June 22), Hagens Berman, the law firm that represented 13 US states in what it describes as the largest recovery in litigation history, a $260 billion settlement against the tobacco industry, announced it was joining the copyright fight against Suno and Udio on behalf of independent musicians. The firm has partnered with Delgado Entertainment Law to represent independent artists whose recordings were allegedly copied without authorization to train the two AI music generation platforms. The same day, Hagens Berman filed an amended complaint against Udio in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York. The entry of a law firm with this track record into what has until now been a David-versus-Goliath fight fundamentally changes the litigation landscape for both AI companies.
The case Hagens Berman joined was first filed in June 2025 by country musician Tony Justice and his label 5th Wheel Records. Justice, a full-time truck driver whose song “Last of the Cowboys” has accumulated more than 8 million streams on Spotify and other platforms, filed parallel class action suits against Suno in Massachusetts and Udio in New York on behalf of independent artists whose work appeared on streaming services since January 1, 2021. The original complaints argued that “rather than simply license these copyrighted songs like every other tech-based business does, Suno and Udio elected to simply steal the songs and generate AI-soundalike music at virtually no cost.” The suits now name Anthony Justice, 5th Wheel Records, and My Heartland Publishing as plaintiffs representing a class of independent artists who have been excluded from the settlements and licensing deals that two of the three major labels have struck with the AI platforms.
That exclusion is the central grievance. UMG settled with Udio in October 2025 and Warner Music Group reached settlements with both Udio and Suno in November 2025, with those deals producing licensing revenue for the majors and structuring future AI music platforms around their catalogs. What those settlements did not address was the independent artist whose recordings were also ingested into the training data but who had no label to negotiate on their behalf. As the American Federation of Musicians made clear in its own lawsuit against UMG and Warner filed earlier this month, even artists whose work appeared on major label releases received nothing from those deals. The independent class action represents artists who are not covered by any of those arrangements at all.
