Universal Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment have been cleared by a federal court to depose a former Principal at Suno investor Menlo Ventures.
The major music companies want to question C.C. Gong about a since-deleted social media post in which she wrote: “I’ve personally shifted most of my listening to Suno. I was so tired of Spotify giving me the same overplayed recommendations.”
In March, MBW pointed to the potential legal significance of Gong’s post in an open letter to Suno CEO Mikey Shulman.
“A key part of your ‘fair use’ defense vs. these majors rests on the argument that Suno’s output creates something fundamentally new, not a replacement for existing music,” the letter told Shulman. “Your own investor just told the world it is a replacement.”
On Friday (October 23), lawyers for UMG and Sony made a similar argument in court (which you can read in full here).
In a motion filed in the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts, they said Gong’s post “bears directly on the effect of Suno on the market for Plaintiffs’ copyrighted sound recordings, and thus on the fourth fair use factor”.
Under Section 107 of the US Copyright Act, that factor is “the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work”.
Magistrate Judge Paul G. Levenson granted the motion on Monday (October 26).
His order allows the plaintiffs to serve a deposition subpoena on Gong and to depose her within 30 days.
The motion sets out how UMG and Sony first sought testimony about the post from Menlo Ventures itself.
On August 20, the plaintiffs subpoenaed Menlo for testimony on topics including “[t]he social-media post by C.C. Gong RELATING TO her shift in music listening from Spotify to SUNO”.
On a call on September 24, Menlo’s counsel said the firm could not obtain the information sought on that topic, according to the filing.
The plaintiffs responded that Gong was a current Menlo employee, and that Menlo could ask her.
“Ms. Gong is a current Menlo employee, and a reasonable investigation to prepare Menlo’s designee requires only that Menlo ask her,” a lawyer for the plaintiffs wrote to Menlo’s counsel on September 26.
According to the motion, Menlo did not deny that assertion.
On October 5, Menlo’s counsel said the firm would designate a witness on the posting and deletion of Gong’s post, but not on her personal listening habits.
Then, on October 12, Menlo’s counsel told the plaintiffs that Gong had left the firm at the end of September.
According to the motion, that was the first time the plaintiffs had been told of her departure – 12 days after the September 30 deadline for “fact discovery not implicated by Plaintiffs’ § 1201 claim”.
That claim relates to the allegation, added to the case in August, that Suno circumvented YouTube‘s anti-downloading technology to obtain recordings.
The plaintiffs noticed a deposition subpoena to Gong on the same day they learned of her departure.
On October 13, Menlo’s counsel wrote that they were “working to confirm that we will represent Ms. Gong”, and asked the plaintiffs not to contact her directly, according to a declaration filed with the motion.
“Plaintiffs have at all times acted diligently,” the motion said, citing a 2005 ruling which found that “[c]ourts ought not to reward those who needlessly allow confusion to persist or who are the cause of discovery delays”.
Suno agreed not to oppose the motion, on the condition that the plaintiffs included a statement of its position in the filing.
That statement read: “Suno has adhered to the deadlines in the Court’s Scheduling Order, including the September 30, 2026 close of fact discovery and the October 2, 2026 deadline to serve third-party subpoenas, and believes those deadlines should bind all parties equally.
“Suno recognizes, however, that whether good cause exists to permit discovery outside the schedule rests with the Court’s sound discretion over the management of discovery. Suno therefore defers to the Court as to whether Plaintiffs should be permitted to pursue their subpoena to Ms. Gong, which followed Plaintiffs’ subpoena to Menlo Ventures by 53 days, and was served 12 days after the deadline for the close of fact discovery not implicated by Plaintiffs’ § 1201 claim.
“Suno takes no position on the subpoena’s propriety and does not intend to limit any objection Ms. Gong or Menlo Ventures may raise, including by motion to quash.”
Menlo Ventures led Suno’s $250 million Series C funding round in November 2025, which valued the company at $2.45 billion.
Gong’s post congratulated Suno on reaching 2 million paid subscribers and $300 million in annual recurring revenue – milestones announced by Shulman in late February.
Menlo is not the only Suno investor to be drawn into the case.
UMG and Sony are also seeking documents and testimony from Lightspeed Venture Partners, which led Suno’s Series B and has moved to quash the majors’ subpoena.
Warner Music Group was originally a plaintiff in the Massachusetts case, but settled with Suno in November 2025 as part of a licensing partnership.
The exhibit filed with the motion is a capture of a post on X by Ed Newton-Rex, CEO of Fairly Trained, which reproduced an image of Gong’s post.
“She deleted the tweet so here is the full thing,” wrote Newton-Rex.
The same capture shows an earlier post by Newton-Rex, dated February 26: “This tweet, from Suno’s lead investor, will surely be used in court one day.”Music Business Worldwide