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Elvis Presley Rightsholders Sue Anthropic for Training on 274 Songs

9:20 PM ETConfirmed

Technology Desk

In Short: The owners of Elvis Presley's song catalog have sued Anthropic, claiming the company used his songs without permission to train its AI model Claude.

The owners of rights to much of Elvis Presley’s song catalog have filed a lawsuit against Anthropic, alleging the company used his songs without permission to train its AI model Claude.

The lawsuit, initiated by Authentic Brands Group and other legal entities that control 274 of Presley’s best-known songs, including 'All Shook Up,' 'Can’t Help Falling in Love,' and 'Don’t Be Cruel,' seeks roughly $50 million in damages, plus reimbursement of court costs and attorneys' fees.

The plaintiffs argue that Anthropic’s unauthorized reuse of the songs 'is destroying the value of these works in a matter of a few years with only profit as its motive.' They claim Anthropic stored the songs into a permanent, general-purpose central library, from which subsets were selected and copied to train Claude.

The lawsuit states that when Claude was asked to recreate songs 'for a modern audience,' it produced material that closely resembled the originals, even when the words were swapped out. This, the plaintiffs argue, constitutes reproducing the copyrighted songs.

Anthropic has responded by stating, 'We disagree with the claims and intend to defend this case fully.' The company previously agreed to a $1.5 billion settlement in a copyright infringement lawsuit filed by authors who alleged the company had illegally used pirated copies of their books to train AI models.

The plaintiffs are seeking statutory damages of up to $150,000 per song, amounting to approximately $41.1 million, reflecting the maximum statutory damages for willful infringement under US copyright law.

The lawsuit highlights the growing legal challenges faced by AI companies in the realm of copyright infringement, with this case being one of the first high-profile instances where the owner of a single artist’s catalog has sued for copyright infringement.

Lead attorney Richard Busch wrote in the lawsuit, 'The Elvis Plaintiffs bring this action to enforce these exclusive rights against the defendant that has built its entire business model based on copyright infringement at a scale never seen before.'

Background

What's confirmed

• “We disagree with the claims and intend to defend this case fully,” an Anthropic spokesperson said in a statement Sunday.
• “Defendant has built its entire business model based on copyright infringement at a scale never seen before,” the plaintiffs said in a lawsuit filed Friday in federal court in San Francisco.
• The owners of Elvis Presley’s music catalogue have sued AI company Anthropic, claiming its Claude models were trained on 274 of his songs without permission.
• The owners of Elvis Presley ‘s music have launched legal action against AI company Anthropic, accusing it of using 274 of his songs to train its models without permission.
• In October 2023, Universal Music Publishing Group, Concord Music Group and ABKCO sued Anthropic, alleging that Claude had reproduced copyrighted lyrics without authorisation.
• “The Elvis Plaintiffs bring this action to enforce these exclusive rights against the defendant that has built its entire business model based on copyright infringement at a scale never seen before,” wrote lead attorney Richard Busch.
• The subsidiary of Authentic Brands Group, which controls the bulk of Presley’s intellectual property—including his name, image, and likeness rights—filed the lawsuit on October 23.
• “The Elvis Plaintiffs are deeply protective of these iconic songs.” “‘Claude’ has created infringing output of copyrighted material of virtually every song from every catalog available on the internet, including the Works,” the lawsuit states.

What's still developing

• Nicolas Cage, who recently starred in “Spider-Noir,” said he won’t work with Amazon again after a disagreement over an AI waiver.
• According to the suit, Claude has produced infringing output of virtually every song from every catalog available online, including the Presley songs at issue.
• He represented Eminem in landmark cases in the 2000s over digital downloads, and later represented Marvin Gaye ’s estate in a famous copyright case against Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams, eventually winning a much-debated verdict that their “Blurred Lines” infringed Gaye’s “Got to Give It Up.” Read the actual lawsuit filed against Anthropic here.

Sources

• Los Angeles Timeslink
• Musictechlink
• NBC Newslink
• Nmelink
• Nydailynewslink
• Pastemagazinelink
• Pitchforklink
• Theneedledroplink
• Nmelink
• Billboardlink
• WarpBeat — background on Elvis Presley's Rights Holders Sue Anthropic Over AI Training link
• WarpBeat — background on Elvis Presley's Rights Holders Sue Anthropic Over AI Training link
• KRON 4 — video link