Anthropic Sued for Allegedly Using Elvis Presley’s Songs to Train Claude AI Models Without Permission: Report

Anthropic seems to be facing a new copyright lawsuit. The artificial intelligence company behind Claude is reportedly being sued for allegedly training its AI models on Elvis Presley’s music without authorisation. The lawsuit reportedly covers 274 copyrighted musical compositions, including popular tracks such as “Can’t Help Falling in Love,” “Don’t Be Cruel,” and “A Little Less Conversation.” The legal action adds to the growing number of copyright disputes involving AI companies for the misuse of music, books and other creative works for the training ⁠of their large language models.

Anthropic Faces New Copyright Claim

As per a report by Billboard, a unit of Authentic Brands Group, the licensing company that controls Elvis Presley’s music catalogue filed a lawsuit against Anthropic on October 23. The lawsuit reportedly claims that the tech brand infringed 274 of the legend’s copyrighted songs, including “Can’t Help Falling in Love,” “A Little Less Conversation” and “Don’t Be Cruel.” The lawsuit was reportedly co-filed by other entities that own Elvis rights.

“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,” Richard Busch, the lead attorney behind the lawsuit, reportedly said. The plaintiffs are reportedly seeking $150,000 (roughly Rs. 14,275,000)  per infringed track.

The list of works cited in the lawsuit reportedly includes Elvis Presley songs, such as “All Shook Up,” “Return to Sender,” and “(You’re The) Devil in Disguise,” in addition to the other tracks mentioned in the complaint. Anthropic had not publicly commented on the lawsuit at the time of writing.

The case comes amid an expanding legal battle over how AI companies collect and use copyrighted material to train their models. Universal Music Group have already sued AI companies for using thier copyrighted music. Anthropic faces copyright-related lawsuits across many industries. A federal judge in San Francisco earlier this year signed off on Anthropic’s landmark $1.5 billion settlement of a class action lawsuit brought by a group of authors who accused it of misusing their books to train Claude.