Leaked files suggest Suno scraped millions of tracks and lyrics
Developed over time first seen 2 months ago
Leaked internal data obtained through a hack has confirmed that AI music company Suno trained its music generator by scraping millions of songs and lyrics from platforms including YouTube Music, Deezer and Genius, according to 404 Media. The revelations matter because Suno had never disclosed what its training data actually contained, and the leak arrives amid lawsuits, including one from the Recording Industry Association of America, that accuse the company of copyright infringement and of unlawfully "stream ripping" tracks from YouTube rather than relying solely on openly available material.
The leaked files, said to include Suno source code from 2023 and 2024, contained scraping instructions for YouTube Music, Deezer, Genius, Pond5, Jamendo, Freesound and IMSLP, with one file indicating Suno had pulled 2,013,545 YouTube Music clips and used a firm called Bright Data to assist the scraping. The same breach exposed Suno customer data, including email addresses, phone numbers and Stripe payment details; the company said it identified the security incident in November 2025, contained it quickly, but did not notify affected customers, while maintaining that its models were trained only on "publicly available" files from the open internet.
- Leaked hack data shows Suno scraped millions of songs from major platforms
- Files reveal over two million YouTube Music clips taken
- Breach also exposed customer emails and payment details; users weren't told
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Suno is a company that makes artificial intelligence tools which can generate music from written prompts. Like other AI systems, its software is trained by processing large amounts of existing material to identify patterns in sound, lyrics and musical structure.
The dispute centres on where that training material came from and whether it was used with permission. Music companies and rights holders say songs and lyrics are protected by copyright, while technology firms have argued that material available online can be used in developing AI systems.
The Recording Industry Association of America represents major record labels in the United States and has brought legal action against Suno. The case could help clarify what music companies must disclose about AI training data and when using online tracks may require licences or payment to rights holders.
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Originally published by The Verge as “Suno snatched millions of songs from YouTube, Genius, and Deezer”.