Nvidia asks court to quash subpoena in UMG v. Suno
An investor in an AI music company is refusing to sit for questioning. Nvidia's venture arm has filed a motion to quash a deposition subpoena in the labels' lawsuit against Suno.
What a motion to quash means here
A subpoena is a legal order to provide documents or testimony. Nvidia is not a party to the case between the labels and Suno. It is a third party that was drawn in because it invested in Suno. A motion to quash asks the court to cancel or narrow such an order, and NVentures, Nvidia's venture arm, filed one against a deposition demand from Universal Music and Sony Music. A deposition is sworn questioning outside the courtroom.
The motion is firmly worded. The report also notes that Nvidia is Universal Music-partnered.
What Universal and Sony want to know
The current subpoena first appeared in August. It was changed after some back and forth between the sides. It reaches Nvidia's business relationship with Suno and its executives before the investment, and documents Suno gave Nvidia about the deal. It also covers due diligence on training data, the risk of infringement litigation, and Suno's possible effect on the market for sound recordings. The list, per the report, goes beyond those items.
Nvidia's case for saying no
The company points to what it has already handed over. Per the motion, "After months of negotiations, collection, and review, NVentures produced 6,324 documents comprising 28,194 pages."
Nvidia also objects to what a deposition would extract. Forcing an investor to share opinions and private conclusions, it argues, could end up doing work that belongs to testifying experts. A deposition is a poor fit, Nvidia says, once an investor has produced substantial material and the plaintiff has not shown that it fell short. The plaintiff also has not explained why Suno or public sources could not supply the rest.
Universal and Sony, Nvidia says, "made no effort at all to explain what information they cannot obtain from the voluminous production NVentures already made, or from Suno."
Not the only subpoena fight
Other Suno investors, including Menlo and Lightspeed, have received subpoenas too, and the parties have reportedly talked about them for months. Suno has requests of its own. It is demanding stream-volume data from the Mechanical Licensing Collective, and details of licensing talks from streaming services including Apple.
Universal and Sony, meanwhile, have several other subpoenas aimed at Suno's market impact, and specifically at how investors assess it. A follow-up complaint was filed after Suno's v6 rollout, and the discovery phase has been full of disagreement.
Suno has licensing pacts with Warner Music, Believe and BMG. It also faces lawsuits from Elvis Presley Enterprises and from Eight Mile Style, the publisher of Eminem.
Source: Digital Music News