AI Company Sued for $1 Billion Over ‘Tens of Thousands’ of Stolen Songs

Anthropic, the startup behind the popular AI chatbot Claude, is facing a multibillion-dollar lawsuit for allegedly using copyrighted songs without permission. Two of the world’s largest music publishers—Sony Music Publishing and Warner Chappell—filed the lawsuit on Tuesday. They accuse Anthropic of feeding “tens of thousands” of copyrighted lyrics into its AI models to train them, without paying the songwriters or securing licenses. The publishers manage the rights to songs on behalf of composers and lyricists. They are seeking financial damages for what they call “systematic and widespread infringement” of protected works. According to the lawsuit, Anthropic’s AI models reproduced and distributed these lyrics in ways that violate copyright law. The publishers argue that this misuse harms the livelihoods of songwriters and undermines the value of their creative work. Anthropic has not yet issued a public response to the claims. The case is expected to test how existing copyright rules apply to the fast-growing field of generative AI.