Elvis rights holders and two authors sue Anthropic

ABG EPE IP LLC, part of Authentic Brands Group, sued Anthropic on 23 October in the Northern District of California. It alleges Claude was trained on lyrics to 274 Presley songs without a licence and reproduces them on request. Anthropic said it disagrees and will defend the case fully.

Variety puts the claim at $48.6 million; TheNextWeb calculates about $41.1 million at $150,000 per song. The suit also alleges songwriter credits were stripped. BMG sued in March over 493 works, and Sony and Warner Chappell followed on 28 August.

The credit claim matters because US law separately bans removing copyright management information, which can add damages beyond the infringement itself. The 2023 suit by Concord, Universal and ABKCO is also still running and was amended in July with internal records from discovery.

Tobias Wolff and Chang-Rae Lee opted out of the $1.5 billion Bartz settlement, which offers about $3,000 per work, and filed Cruz v. Anthropic, seeking a jury trial and up to $150,000 per work. They allege books came from LibGen and PiLiMi.

The suit names works by at least six Stanford academics. Wolff says the settlement "still gives Anthropic pretty free rein" to use literature, and 27 other authors have also criticised it as too low.

Judge William Alsup held that training on lawfully acquired books can be fair use but building a library from pirated copies is not. Statutory damages need no proof of actual loss and reach $150,000 per wilfully infringed work. More than 70 AI copyright suits are pending in the US.

The suits add uncertainty to Anthropic's IPO. Lyrics cases matter because they target outputs as well as training. More opt-outs from class deals are likely.

• Do not have AI reproduce lyrics, book passages or slogans.
• License music for reels and ads and keep records.
• Check whether your AI contract includes indemnity.