According to Musicbusinessworldwide.com, major record labels have fired back at Suno’s alleged attempt to dismiss allegations that the AI music startup has illegally downloaded copyrighted songs from YouTube. The companies argued that Suno allegedly violated federal anti-circumvention laws regardless of any fair use defense.

In a reply brief filed on October 20, in Massachusetts Federal Court, and obtained by MBW, lawyers for labels owned by Sony Music, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group defended their expanded lawsuit against Suno. The music companies are suing Suno for alleged mass infringement of copyright by alleging the AI startup used copyrighted recordings without permission to train its AI.

Back in September, the companies filed a proposed amended complaint that allegedly expanded the claims against Suno. They alleged that the AI company got its hands on the recordings by “stream-ripping” them from YouTube, i.e., by circumventing YouTube’s player window and downloading the files directly. In response, Suno on October 3, asked the court to throw out the latest stream-ripping allegations. While Suno did not allegedly deny “stream-ripping” music from YouTube and the company’s lawyers argued that the alleged practice is not illegal under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).