AI Music Is Growing, But Is India’s Copyright Law Ready?

The battle between artificial intelligence companies and the music industry is widening, with fresh lawsuits and court rulings bringing renewed attention to how AI models are trained, who owns AI-generated music and whether creators are being adequately compensated.

The latest action came from independent music publisher Round Hill Music, which sued AI companies Anthropic and Suno in a California federal court, alleging that they misused hundreds of songs controlled by the publisher to train their systems.

The cases add to a growing global dispute over copyrighted training data and come as AI-generated music begins moving from an experimental technology into a commercial part of the music ecosystem.

What Is Round Hill And Anthropic-Suno Case?

Round Hill Music alleged that Anthropic used lyrics from at least 500 songs in which the publisher holds rights to train Claude, while Suno allegedly used the same songs to train its AI music-generation system.

The songs cited include works associated with artists such as James Brown, The Kinks and the Goo Goo Dolls. Round Hill said it could eventually add "ten thousand or more" compositions to the lawsuits, with potential damages that could approach or exceed $1 billion, as per a report by Reuters.

"We intend to take these cases to trial and to hold these companies accountable, and we will not accept a resolution that leaves songwriters and artists deprived of their rightful share of compensation," Round Hill CEO Josh Gruss reportedly said in a statement.

The litigation follows a series of similar disputes involving music rights holders and AI companies. BMG Rights Management sued Anthropic in March, alleging that the company used copyrighted lyrics from artists including the Rolling Stones, Bruno Mars and Ariana Grande to train the models powering Claude. BMG cited 493 alleged examples of copyright infringement.

Anthropic is also facing a separate ongoing lawsuit brought by Universal Music Group and other music publishers, while Suno has faced claims from major music companies over the use of copyrighted recordings in AI training.

Court Ruling On Suno Adds Pressure

Legal scrutiny is not confined to the US. A Munich regional court, on July 31, ruled that Suno violated copyrights involving songs represented by German licensing agency Gema.

Gema's lawsuit concerned the alleged use of music available on Alphabet's YouTube, including songs associated with Alphaville.

The court said Suno did not have the right to process the works and ordered the company to disclose illicit revenue, while damages are yet to be quantified. The verdict can be appealed.

Gema CEO Tobias Holzmueller said that the "verdict is of global significance," as per Reuters.

Suno said it disagreed with the ruling and would evaluate its options, including an appeal.

The company has, however, also moved towards licensed AI music. In November 2025, Warner Music Group settled its copyright dispute with Suno, paving the way for new licensed AI models. Under that arrangement, Suno said its new models would replace existing versions in 2026, illustrating how the industry is simultaneously fighting unauthorised use and exploring licensing-based commercial models.

Why Are Copyright Disputes Increasing?

Experts said that the increase in disputes reflects both rising awareness of intellectual property rights (IPR) and the growing importance of intangible assets in the digital economy.

"The increase in copyright and personality rights disputes reflects both a greater awareness of IPR and the unprecedented scale at which content is being created, distributed, and monetised in the digital economy," said Nirupam Lodha, Partner at Khaitan & Co.

He added that as intangible assets become central to business operations, rights holders are more willing to enforce their legal rights.

"At the same time, advancements in AI, social media, and digital platforms have created new forms of use and potential misuse of content, making disputes more visible and more frequent. What we are witnessing is the natural evolution of IP law in response to technological change," Lodha remarked.

For the music industry, the concern is especially significant because AI can potentially analyse enormous quantities of lyrics, compositions, recordings and vocal characteristics before generating new material.

The monetary impact is also central to the dispute. Rights holders earn from multiple streams, including streaming, publishing and public performance.

And how can the artists lose the revenue? Answer lies in the recognition abd attribution to the original artists associated with the music.

If AI-generated works incorporate protected material without attribution, questions arise over whether the original creator is losing revenue and whether existing royalty systems can identify the use before payments are distributed.

Hari Nair, Strategic Advisor at ContentLens and former CEO of Tips Music, said that royalties could depend heavily on the credits and metadata attached to a release.

"It depends entirely on what the artist or the company that uploads the song, declares at the point of release in their metadata," he said.

"Where no original rights holders are credited, royalties could flow entirely to the uploader, making monitoring and identification of unauthorised use increasingly important," Nair added.

So, Who Owns An AI-Generated Song?

This is one of the biggest unresolved questions, in India as well as the world.

The Indian copyright law separately protects sound recordings, musical compositions and lyrics, subject to the applicable legal requirements. For computer-generated literary and musical works, the Copyright Act, 1957 identifies the author as the person who causes the work to be created.

However, determining who that person is becomes more difficult when AI plays a substantial or autonomous role, said JV Abhay, Partner at Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas (SAM).

"If the lyrics and musical composition of a song are generated entirely through the AI tool, with minimal human intervention or input, whether or not there would be any copyright in such lyrics and composition would need to be clarified first," he said.

Abhay pointed out the Delhi High Court's recent interim-stage decision in Tarun Chaudhary & Anr. v. Kuldeep Meena & Ors., where the court refused ad-interim relief in a dispute involving an AI-generated song because it was not satisfied that copyright could subsist in the work.

Jasmine Damkewala, Advocate on Record at the Supreme Court, similarly said that the Section 2(d)(vi) of the Copyright Act does not conclusively identify whether the developer, AI company, commissioning label or prompting user should be treated as the author.

She noted that a bare prompt with little further human creative contribution could face difficulty in meeting India's originality threshold, while selection, editing, arranging and other traceable creative decisions could strengthen an ownership claim.

Training Data, Cloned Voices And Personality Rights

Another major question is whether AI companies can train their systems on copyrighted songs without obtaining licences.

The issue remains unresolved in India. While the Delhi High Court took a prima facie view at the interim stage in the ANI vs OpenAI case that training on copyrighted works could qualify as fair dealing in the circumstances of that case, CAM's Abhay argued the position cannot automatically be extended to music, which involves a higher level of creativity.

"Indian law, therefore, has not conclusively determine as yet whether AI companies can train models on songs in which copyright subsists without obtaining licenses," he said.

AI has also intensified concerns over synthetic voices and imitation. The key issue is unauthorised commercial exploitation of a person's identity.

"AI significantly amplifies personality rights concerns because it can replicate a person's voice, likeness, image, mannerisms, or identity at scale and with remarkable realism," Khaitan's Lodha said.

Indian courts have increasingly protected individuals against such misuse through personality rights and related legal principles.

For instance, the Bombay High Court's in the Arijit Singh case, protected the singer's personality rights against unauthorised commercial exploitation.

In terms of rise of AI personalities and avatars, Anupam Shukla, Partner at Pioneer Legal, said that an AI-generated character itself would not be a rights holder under the current framework.

"Although the character could potentially be protected as intellectual property or a commercial brand owned by the human or company behind it," Shukla said.

How Are Music Companies Evolving?

Music companies are now evaluating the difference between AI artists and humans. Music streaming platform Spotify, on August 11, announced that it would add "AI Persona" tags or badges to profiles of the artists that appear human but instead represent AI generated personalities.

The move, expected to begin from September, aims to give transparency to listeners, said Spotify, adding that it will exclude such personas from algorithmic and editorial recommendations, as per Reuters.

It clarified that segregation would not depend on how the music was created but on the artist's public identity. The company said that artists can also disclose whether their profile represents an AI persona.

Companies developing AI music and voice technologies are increasingly shifting towards consent-based data practices, licensing, provenance tracking and safeguards against unauthorised imitation as legal scrutiny intensifies.

Sushant Kumar, Co-founder and Director of AI-powered dubbing automation company Ant Systemz, said the company's approach is to use data that is owned, licensed or created with explicit consent rather than material scraped from the internet or artists' catalogues without permission.

"We start from a simple principle: technology should expand human creativity, not quietly appropriate it. At Ant Systemz, our AI music and voice systems are built on data that is either owned, licensed, or created with explicit consent - not scraped from the open internet or from artists' catalogues without permission," Kumar said.

He added that the company also treats consent as a prerequisite for voice replication, maintaining records of rights and authorisation, introducing human review for sensitive requests and enabling misuse to be traced and addressed.

This approach reflects a broader industry shift towards consent, attribution and transparency, with music rights organisations and technology companies also developing systems to help track how works are used by AI and how creators can be compensated.

Are India's Laws Ready For AI-Native Musicians?

Experts broadly agree that the existing framework can address parts of the problem, but significant gaps remain.

The Copyright Act has shown flexibility, though Lodha said that AI-related issues would benefit from greater clarity, particularly the copyright status of AI-generated works and the use of copyrighted material for AI training.

Shukla cautioned against creating an entirely separate legal category of an "AI artist", arguing that this could create further questions around legal personality and liability. Instead, he suggested clarity around ownership, disclosure and personality rights.

"I believe creating a legal category of 'AI artist' would be a mistake. This invites way more questions than it answers. The question of legal personality, and with it a liability vacuum: who should be sued when an AI infringes a tune, defames someone, or breaches a contract?" Shukla reasoned.

Damkewala said contractual assignment currently remains the safer route where ownership is uncertain, while businesses may also need to document human creative contribution.

Nair identified three major gaps: mandatory licensing for AI training data, statutory protection against voice and likeness replication, and content provenance requirements when music is uploaded.

As the lawsuits against Anthropic and Suno show, the debate is no longer limited to whether AI can make music. The larger questions now concern what went into the model, who owns what comes out of it, how revenue should be shared and who is responsible when technology crosses into copyright or personality-rights infringement.

The emerging response appears to be moving on two tracks: litigation to establish legal boundaries, and licensing, consent and content-provenance systems designed to make AI music commercially viable without stripping creators of control over their work.