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Sony and Warner Music sue Anthropic, alleging it pirated songs to train AI

From Al Jazeera · () English

Translated from English and summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.

At a glance

News Named sources In the courts
  • Sony Music and Warner Music sued Anthropic in a California federal court, alleging the company used copyrighted lyrics and sheet music to train its Claude AI models.
  • The publishers say Claude can reproduce copyrighted lyrics verbatim and generate competing AI lyrics, and they seek damages of up to $150,000 per infringement plus an injunction.
  • Anthropic called the case a repeat of allegations in existing lawsuits and said it would defend itself, while asserting that AI training qualifies as fair use.

Sony Music and Warner Music have taken Anthropic to federal court in California, accusing the artificial intelligence company of building its Claude models with hundreds of pirated song lyrics and pieces of sheet music.

Anthropic clearly considers that to be just the cost of doing business given that its entire business model continues to be built on copyright theft.

— Sony Music and Warner MusicThe publishers used the statement in their complaint to argue that Anthropic’s previous settlement had not deterred alleged infringement.

The publishers said the material included works by The Beatles, Taylor Swift, Michael Jackson and hundreds of other artists. Their complaint alleges that Anthropic obtained the works through torrent downloads and used them both to answer prompts and to generate large quantities of supposedly new lyrics.

The case adds to a growing legal fight between copyright owners and AI companies. Authors, publishers, music labels and news organizations have filed lawsuits over the use of their work in AI training. Universal Music Group also sued Anthropic in 2023 and again this year over alleged use of copyrighted lyrics, with those cases still pending.

And $1.5bn is obviously not a large enough settlement to deter infringing conduct by a company that has parlayed such mass infringement into a staggering 2-trillion-dollar valuation.

— Sony Music and Warner MusicThe publishers criticized Anthropic’s previous $1.5 billion settlement with authors.

The publishers argue that Claude can reproduce protected lyrics “verbatim” and that AI-generated songs could compete with legitimate copyrighted works as market substitutes. They are seeking damages of up to $150,000 for each infringed copyright, along with a court order preventing Anthropic from using their material.

This is the third lawsuit from the same lawyers, recycling allegations from cases already before the courts.

— Anthropic spokespersonAnthropic rejected the new lawsuit as a repetition of claims in earlier proceedings.

Anthropic said the lawsuit came from the same lawyers as earlier cases and recycled allegations already before the courts. The company said it would defend itself “robustly” and cited a judge in the authors’ case in support of its position that AI training makes fair use of copyrighted material. Anthropic previously paid $1.5 billion to settle a class action brought by authors, a sum Sony and Warner described as too small to deter further infringement.

robustly

— Anthropic spokespersonThe spokesperson said the company would defend itself robustly.
About this summary

Originally published by Al Jazeera in English. Translated, summarized, and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.

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