Sony and Universal Ask Court to Force Suno Investor Lightspeed to Testify on Training Data Legal Risks

Sony and Universal Music have filed an opposition in Boston federal court against Lightspeed Venture Partners' motion to quash a subpoena, seeking to compel the Suno investor to testify about the "legal risk of training data." The filing, submitted on October 13, signals that the major labels are pushing to surface internal investor communications that may shed light on what Lightspeed knew — or discussed — about copyright liability before backing the AI music startup.

The move escalates the broader legal battle surrounding Suno's use of copyrighted recordings to train its AI music generation model. By targeting a venture investor rather than the company itself, Sony and Universal appear to be building a record that could speak to awareness of legal exposure at the time of investment — a potentially significant angle as courts continue to grapple with the boundaries of fair use in AI training.