Suno Plows Ahead With MLC Subpoena, Sets Response Deadline

Suno is charging ahead with its Mechanical Licensing Collective subpoena, and the MLC now has until Monday to formally oppose a related motion to compel.

The involved parties just recently disclosed that quick-moving schedule, including the November 2nd response cutoff for the MLC. Of course, the latter entity needn’t wait until Monday to respond – though at the time of this writing, a reply hadn’t made its way into the docket.

(Technically, the presiding judge has yet to approve the newly reassigned subpoena clash’s proposed timetable, it’s also worth noting. But with the MLC having agreed to the November 2nd deadline, its response will presumably arrive soon in any event.)

As currently scheduled, Suno will then have two weeks (until November 16th) to offer a reply in support of its motion, which is seeking to compel the MLC to turn over troves of label-specific stream-volume data dating back to 2021.

And as emphasized by Suno itself, that data is relevant from the perspective of its central fair use and copyright misuse defenses in a high-stakes infringement battle with Universal Music and Sony Music. Have the plaintiff majors suffered actual market harm from AI audio on DSPs?

Or are their advantageous licensing terms, complete with minimum-payment provisions and more, insulating them from negative financial effects on this front? Moreover, are they (mis)using their catalog sway to prevent on-demand services from offering and/or steering users towards lower-cost AI content?

We don’t have concrete answers to the important questions – or those at the heart of Universal Music’s own subpoenas, likewise concerning the market impact of Suno outputs – at present. However, we do know that Apple and others are uninterested in turning over the data.

That’s clear enough from Apple’s motion to quash a Suno deposition subpoena, which we broke down in detail earlier this week. Also as exclusively reported by DMN, the Suno v. MLC confrontation has been brewing throughout much of 2026; at one point, the MLC was seemingly prepared to provide the information in question.

But months-old emails exchanged amid the dispute suggest that Apple isn’t the sole non-party with reservations about the streaming-data request.

“Thank you for sending your e-mail below to Pandora regarding The MLC’s intention to produce Pandora data. At this time, Pandora does not consent to any production that includes Pandora data,” counsel for the service responded to MLC assistant general counsel Dustin Kovacic way back in July.

In other words, the subpoena showdown, one component of a single lawsuit in a decidedly litigation-heavy space, isn’t new even if it just boiled over. And it raises questions about not only forthcoming revelations, but about precisely how long the overarching courtroom confrontations will drag on in the absence of additional settlements.