Anthropic is reportedly being sued for allegedly training its AI on Elvis Presley’s music without permission.
Billboard reports that owners of Presley’s intellectual property rights filed the lawsuit on Friday, claiming that Anthropic used 274 of the rock icon’s songs to train its Claude AI models. Such songs allegedly included hits such as “Can’t Help Falling in Love,” “Don’t Be Cruel,” “Return to Sender,” and “(You’re the) Devil in Disguise.”
The complaint alleges that Claude’s generated content now adapts or copies Presley’s discography without appropriate licensing or consent, and accuses Anthropic of having “built its entire business model on infringing copyrights at an unfathomable scale.” The lawsuit specifically described instances in which users could request Claude recreate and update Presley’s songs.
“These renders keep landing very close to the originals: same structure, same hooks reused with light rewording, and full sets of verses/choruses/bridges,” read the filing. “That’s edging past ‘inspired by’ into reproducing the copyrighted song, even when the words are swapped out.”
Anthropic has refuted the allegations, a spokesperson stating, “We disagree with the claims and intend to defend this case fully.”
The plaintiffs are requesting a permanent injunction to prevent Anthropic from using Presley’s songs, as well as damages of up to $150,000 for each work allegedly infringed upon. At 274 works, that would be a fine of up to $41.1 million.
Anthropic has been the target of multiple prior lawsuits alleging unauthorised use of intellectual property. Sony Music Publishing and Warner Chappell Music sued Anthropic in August, claiming that it had conducted a “brazen campaign of illegally torrenting, scraping, and downloading copyrighted works on a massive scale.” In July, Anthropic settled a $1.5 billion class action lawsuit in which authors accused it of illegally downloading pirated books. Universal Music Group has sued Anthropic for copyright infringement twice, filing this January as well as in October 2023.
