Illegal? If the record companies were so obviously going to win, they could've obtained a preliminary injunction to stop Suno's business. They didn't, so the service continues.

Pretty sure napster also continued to operate during ongoing legal actions but I am not a lawyer

AFAIK the lawsuit is still ongoing.

Suno admitted to train their models with copyrighted music and are now defending the position that music copyrights and royalties are bad for the future of music.

I think it's more straightforward to argue it's transformative fair use.

fair use requires it be non-profit which doesnt work for suno

I don’t think that’s true. Parodies are protected as transformative fair use and plenty of them are for-profit.

you're right it's a grey area, but in the field of music specifically, it's some of the most stringent requirements. the more creative it is, the more it replaces the market for the original, the less of a parody it is (not weird al), the more you will struggle to use fair use as a defense. suno generating music hits all the parts of "this is hard to defend" while also being in the the most litigious possible industry for fair use

Fair use has consideration for whether the derivative work disrupts the market for the original, it doesn't mean you can't use it for profit as we saw with the Google books case.

Not according to US federal statute.

Fair use encompasses a lot of possible scenarios involving copyrighted works which may or may not be commercially licensed: transformative derivative works, short excerpts for purposes of commentary, backups of copies obtained legally, playback for face-to-face instruction, etc.

Transformative is one of 4 conditions that the court uses to decide if something is fair use. This question is still in active litigation in the courts.

I hope no songwriters have listened to Sony music or they could be in trouble.

Suno is not a songwriter.

It's a simulated brain that writes songs ...

Do most companies just stop releasing product while in legal disputes? I don’t think I’ve ever heard of that.

They don't unless a judge orders them. It would be nonsensical to do so as lawsuits typically take years.

lawsuitS with Sony, Universal, and Warner Music, indeed. And the RIAA. and the GEMA.