Sony Music Publishing and Warner Chappell Music have filed a lawsuit against Anthropic, alleging that the artificial intelligence company unlawfully obtained and used copyrighted musical works to train its Claude AI models.
According to Business Insider, the case, filed in a federal court in Northern California, also names Anthropic co-founders Dario Amodei and Benjamin Mann. Anthropic has rejected the allegations and said it plans to defend itself in court.
Music Publishers Allege Large-Scale Copyright Infringement
The publishers allege that Anthropic accessed tens of thousands of copyrighted musical compositions without obtaining permission. The works cited in the complaint include songs such as Eye of the Tiger, September, Uptown Funk, Hallelujah, Taylor Swift’s Paper Rings and Mariah Carey’s All I Want for Christmas Is You.
According to the lawsuit, copyrighted material was allegedly acquired through torrent networks and large-scale online scraping.
The publishers also claim Anthropic obtained content from digital archives such as Library Genesis and Pirate Library Mirror, while lyrics were allegedly collected from websites including Musixmatch and LyricFind.
The complaint further alleges that Claude can generate song lyrics that are identical or substantially similar to copyrighted originals, potentially creating competition for human songwriters and rights holders.
Sony Music Publishing and Warner Chappell are seeking statutory damages of as much as $150,000 for each work allegedly infringed wilfully. They are also seeking up to $25,000 for each alleged violation involving the removal or alteration of copyright management information.
Depending on the number of works and the court’s findings, the financial liability could potentially reach billions of dollars. The publishers have also requested a jury trial, destruction of allegedly infringing copies and information detailing the material used to train Claude.
The lawsuit comes soon after Anthropic agreed to a $1.5 billion settlement with authors and publishers over claims concerning pirated books used to train its AI systems.
The music publishers are citing that litigation as part of their argument that AI companies should acquire copyrighted creative works legally and compensate rights holders when required.
