Suno AI accused of scraping data from YouTube and other platforms

A new controversy has erupted around the music-generating AI service Suno. Data obtained from a hacking attack suggests that the company may have illegally used tens of thousands of copyrighted audio files from YouTube Music, Deezer, and other major platforms to train its algorithms. This situation poses a serious challenge not only to technological ethics but also to global copyright law. This is reported by Techcrunch.com reports.

According to a report by 404 Media, an unknown hacker managed to access the company's internal source code by compromising a Suno employee's credentials. The obtained documents reveal that the Suno system used "scraping" (automated collection) to gather data from music libraries accumulated over decades, the Genius portal, stock audio, and even RSS feeds of podcasts.

Copyright and the "fair use" debate

Suno's leadership previously admitted that its models are trained on publicly available internet data. The company is attempting to justify this using the "fair use" doctrine in U.S. law. However, major recording studios and music labels strongly disagree. They argue that scraping data by bypassing the security systems of platforms like YouTube constitutes a gross violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and terms of service.

This issue is not limited to Suno. Its main competitor, the Udio service, has faced similar accusations. Interestingly, Google, the owner of YouTube, has itself been sued by book publishers for intellectual property theft. This chain of events highlights how complex the issue of data sourcing is in the AI industry.

User data at risk

The hacking attack was not limited to technical code. It turned out that the attacker also had access to customer email addresses, phone numbers, and partial credit card information from the Stripe payment system. This means the personal data of millions of users of the service is at risk.

Suno did not officially notify its users about this major security breach, which occurred in November 2025. Company representatives have limited their response to calling the incident a "limited security event that was quickly resolved." However, independent experts are concerned that the situation may be much more serious.

This news is also significant for users in Uzbekistan, as services like Suno and Udio are becoming popular among local content creators. If court proceedings are decided in favor of the labels, the operations of these platforms could be restricted or their subscription prices could rise sharply. For now, the struggle between tech giants and copyright holders is entering a new phase.