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musicians, Streaming services Record companies have been claiming this for years AI music services They use their extensive collections of human-created music to build their own AI tools. Now we have a clearer picture of how to do this sunan AI company that helps people create AI-powered tracks and songs, created her music.
A hack of Suno’s source code reveals that it trained its AI by extracting massive amounts of music and lyrics from platforms like YouTube Music, Deezer, Genius, and stored music libraries. 404 media reported Wednesday.
The hacker, who goes by the alias ellie.191, used a supply chain attack vector in November 2025. Screenshots and information shared with 404 Media confirm some of the origins of the company’s training data from 2023 and 2024.
One file shows that at the time it was last opened, there were more than 2 million tracks in a folder called “youtube_music.” Other files contain more than 17,000 hours of music from Genius HQ, more than 12,000 hours from streaming service Deezer and more than 62,000 hours from a Shutterstock-owned music site called Pond5. The hacker also gained access to customer records and payment details held by Suno’s payment vendor, Stripe, 404 Media reports.
A Suno spokesperson told CNET that the company immediately investigated the breach and found that it “primarily involved legacy source code that is no longer in use at Suno and that no sensitive personal information was compromised.” The company also denies that it has access to customers’ full credit card numbers, concluding that under current privacy laws it does not need to notify individual users.
Suno AI co-founder Mickey Shulman.
Pull back the curtain on AI generated music
With a new trend of people Create songs from their text message exchangesYou may have heard about some of Suno’s AI-generated songs on social media. As sites like Suno gain popularity, it’s important to know how they work.
Although the source code described in the hack is no longer in use, it is a unique peek into the black boxes that technology companies guard as they build generative artificial intelligence. It also appears to validate many of the allegations in the copyright infringement lawsuits filed against Suno.
A label representing the largest record labels, including Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group, is claiming Ongoing lawsuit That Suno’s use of its artists’ songs, without proper approval or licensing, violates their copyright protection.
Like other AI companies, Suno claims that its use of original materials as training data is legal under the law The principle of fair use in copyright law. Anthropic and meta He won similar cases Filed by the authors alleging infringement last summer.
A source close to the lawsuit told CNET that the company does not consider the information in the 404 Media story to be “materially new” because it revealed its training methods. In a public file And on A page on its website.
“Suno’s music-generating AI models are trained on publicly available music files and related metadata accessible on third-party sites on the open internet,” its website says.
All of these lawsuits support the turbulent situation unfolding in the creative industries. Technology companies like Suno say they exist to help the creative process and democratize access; Human artists across all media say AI Their work is used without permission To create Cheap imitations known as AI slop Used by executives To lay off workers.
Some publishers and copyright holders have struck deals with AI companies to use their content. AI companies have also introduced some guardrails to prevent deepfakes and outright copying – you can’t ask Suno to create a pop song in the style of Taylor Swift, for example.
But these measures did little to reassure the artists. Even when record labels strike deals with AI companies, as UMG did with Suno in a separate lawsuit settlement, The musicians say they have not received any compensation To use their songs.
