Music Publishers Sue Anthropic Over AI Copyright Infringement

A coalition of major music publishers, led by Concord Music Group and Universal Music Publishing Group, filed a federal copyright infringement lawsuit against artificial intelligence company Anthropic on Wednesday in the Northern District of California. The suit accuses Anthropic of illegally downloading more than 20,000 copyrighted songs, including sheet music, lyrics, and musical compositions, to train its AI chatbot Claude, potentially exposing the company to damages exceeding $3 billion.

The publishers, which also include ABKCO Music and Capitol Music Group, allege that Anthropic obtained the materials through unauthorized torrenting from illegal online libraries, such as LibGen, to build a vast repository of texts for AI development. According to the complaint, this piracy occurred as early as June 2021, when Anthropic co-founder Benjamin Mann downloaded approximately five million pirated books, including songbooks, with the authorization of CEO Dario Amodei. The lawsuit names Amodei and Mann as individual defendants alongside the company, claiming their actions constituted willful infringement.

This new case builds on discoveries from the separate Bartz v. Anthropic...