Sony Music and Warner Music Accuse Anthropic of Copyright Infringement

The music publishing divisions of Sony Music and Warner Music Group have filed a lawsuit against Anthropic in a California federal court. The companies accuse Anthropic of illegally using copyrighted musical works to train its Claude AI models.

According to the lawsuit, filed on Friday, Anthropic illegally obtained hundreds of song lyrics and sheet music to train Claude. These included works by The Beatles, Taylor Swift, and Michael Jackson, along with hundreds of other artists.

Sony Music and Warner Music claim that Anthropic obtained their lyrics and sheet music, including through torrent downloads. The companies allege that Claude can reproduce copyrighted song lyrics verbatim when prompted by users.

The companies also claim that Anthropic used their song lyrics to train Claude to generate AI-created lyrics that then compete with the music publishers' legitimate works.

The case is part of a growing wave of lawsuits filed by copyright holders against AI companies. Authors, publishers, music labels, and media companies are already suing tech companies in court, claiming their works are being used without permission to train AI systems.

A similar dispute against Anthropic was already initiated by Universal Music Group in 2023 over the alleged use of copyrighted song lyrics in AI training. That case is still ongoing.

Last year, Anthropic reached a settlement in one of the AI and copyright-related disputes, paying $1.5 billion to resolve a class action lawsuit brought by a group of authors.

Sony Music and Warner Music state that this amount did not prove to be a sufficient deterrent, and that Anthropic's business model remains dependent on large-scale copyright infringement.

The plaintiffs are seeking compensation of up to $150,000 for each infringed copyright, as well as a court order barring Anthropic from using their works.