Key facts
- Sony Music Publishing and Warner Chappell have sued Anthropic for alleged copyright infringement.
- The lawsuit claims Anthropic illegally obtained and used copyrighted song lyrics and sheet music to train its Claude AI models.
- Publishers allege the copyrighted materials were acquired through illegal torrenting and downloading.
- The plaintiffs are seeking up to $150,000 in damages per infringed copyright.
- Anthropic denies the allegations and intends to defend itself in court.
Sony Music Publishing and Warner Chappell, along with numerous other music publishers, have filed a lawsuit against AI company Anthropic in a California federal court. The publishers allege that Anthropic engaged in a 'brazen campaign of illegally torrenting, scraping, and downloading copyrighted works,' including thousands of songs, to train its Claude AI models. The lawsuit claims Anthropic committed 'blatant theft' by using lyrics and sheet music from artists such as The Beatles, Taylor Swift, and Michael Jackson. The plaintiffs are seeking up to $150,000 in damages for each copyright infringement and a court order to prevent further use of their intellectual property. Anthropic has stated that it disagrees with the publishers' claims and intends to defend itself robustly. This action follows similar lawsuits against AI companies by copyright holders and builds on previous legal challenges faced by Anthropic, including a case where authors accused the company of using copyrighted works for training, which resulted in a significant settlement.