Rights holders of Elvis Presley’s music have filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against the artificial intelligence company Anthropic. They allege that Anthropic used the lyrics of 274 Elvis songs without permission while training its conversational AI, Claude.
The lawsuit, filed on October 23 in the Northern District of California, claims that Anthropic utilized the songs for training without a license or compensation. Among the songs cited are "All Shook Up," "Can't Help Falling in Love," "Don't Be Cruel," and "Return to Sender."
The plaintiffs assert that Anthropic stored the songs in its internal library and later used them for model training. They also raised concerns that Claude generates lyrics or variations upon user request. The lawsuit includes allegations that copyright management information was deleted or altered.
The damages sought amount to a maximum of $150,000 per song, totaling $41.1 million for the 274 songs. The plaintiffs are requesting not only compensation but also a permanent injunction against further infringement and the destruction of unauthorized copies.
According to the plaintiffs, the safety measures implemented by Anthropic following the lawsuit are ineffective. They noted that when they requested Claude to recreate a specific song for a "modern audience," the output was nearly identical to the original, with only minor changes to the lyrics.
Anthropic has stated that it disagrees with the claims and intends to vigorously defend itself in the case. In another lawsuit, the company has argued that its use of lyrics falls under fair use in the United States.
Litigation in the music industry has been on the rise. Sony Music Publishing and Warner Chappell Music sued Anthropic in August, and lawsuits from Universal Music Publishing Group, Concord, and ABKCO are also ongoing. Last week, music company Reservoir Media filed a lawsuit as well. Anthropic previously agreed to pay $1.5 billion to settle a class-action lawsuit from authors who claimed the company used illegally copied books for training.
* This article has been translated by AI.
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