Home · Technology · Oct 28 archive
Elvis Presley's Rights Holders Sue Anthropic Over AI Training
Confirmed
In Short: The owners 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 owners of Elvis Presley’s song catalog have filed a lawsuit against Anthropic, the tech company behind the AI chatbot Claude, alleging that the company used his songs without permission to train its models.
The lawsuit, filed on October 23 in federal court in San Francisco, claims that Anthropic used 274 of Presley’s songs to train Claude, including iconic tracks like “Can’t Help Falling in Love,” “A Little Less Conversation,” and “Don’t Be Cruel.”
The plaintiffs, partnerships that control Presley’s music, are seeking $41.1 million in statutory copyright damages, up to $150,000 for each of the 274 works they allege were willfully infringed.
Lead attorney Richard Busch, who represented Eminem in landmark cases over digital downloads and Marvin Gaye’s estate in a copyright dispute against Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams, wrote in the complaint that Anthropic has built its business model on copyright infringement at a scale never seen before.
The lawsuit claims that Anthropic’s use of Presley’s songs “is destroying the value of these works in a matter of a few years with only profit as its motive.”
The plaintiffs argue that Claude has produced infringing output of virtually every song from every catalog available online, including the Presley songs at issue, and that the AI model has created near-copies of the songs with light rewording.
Anthropic has faced numerous lawsuits over the process of training its models to create new ones, which involves ingesting millions of existing works without permission. In a separate case, Judge William Alsup ruled that training AI models on lawfully acquired books constituted fair use, while obtaining pirated copies did not.
In response to the lawsuit, an Anthropic spokesperson stated, “We disagree with the claims and intend to defend this case fully.”
Background
The owners of Elvis Presley’s intellectual property rights have launched a legal battle against Anthropic, the tech company behind the AI chatbot Claude.
What's confirmed
- The owners of Elvis Presley’s music have sued Anthropic, alleging it used his copyrighted lyrics without permission to train its AI models and generating infringing versions of his songs.
- Legendary tracks including “Can’t Help Falling in Love,” “A Little Less Conversation,” and “Don’t Be Cruel” are among the 274 songs the plaintiffs allege Anthropic used, as reported by Billboard.
- 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 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,” lead attorney Richard Busch wrote.
- “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.
- In October 2023, Universal Music Publishing Group, Concord Music Group and ABKCO sued Anthropic, alleging that Claude had reproduced copyrighted lyrics without authorisation.
- “These renders keep landing very close to the originals: same structure, same hooks reused with light rewording, and full sets of verses/choruses/bridges,” “Claude” said when asked to recreate certain songs.
- “We disagree with the claims and intend to defend this case fully,” an Anthropic spokesperson said in a statement Sunday to several news outlets.
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.
- Billboard first reported that Authentic Brands Group, the licensing group that controls Presley’s music and likeness, filed its lawsuit Friday, alleging that Anthropic — the AI giant behind Claude — infringed on the rights of 274 of Presley’s songs.
- Although major labels and music publishers have filed claims against Anthropic before, Authentic Brands Group’s lawsuit is one of the first high-profile cases wherein the owner of a single artist’s catalog sued for copyright infringement.