Music Publisher Sues Anthropic For Use Of Copyright Protected Song Lyrics

Anthropic is accused of violating the rights of publishers through the use of song lyrics. (photo: dock. Anthropic)

JAKARTA - Universal Music, ABKCO, and Concord Publishing sued intelligence company created by Anthropic in Tennessee federal court on Wednesday, October 18. They accused the AI company of using an "uncountable number" of copyright-protected song lyrics to train its Claude chatbot.

The lawsuit states that Anthropic violated the rights of publishers through the use of lyrics from at least 500 songs. These, ranging from Beach Boys' "God Only Knows" and Rolling Stones' "Gimme Shelter" to Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars' "Hello" Beyonce's "Uptown Funk".

Meanwhile representatives from Anthropic did not immediately respond to requests for comment from the media.

The publisher's lawyer, Matt Oppenheim, declined to comment on the litigation but said that "according to established copyright law, an entity cannot reproduce, distribute, and display other people's copyrighted works to build their own business unless they get permission from rights holders."

Many copyright owners, including writers and visual artists, have sued tech companies such as Meta Platforms Inc., and OpenAI backed by Microsoft for their work use to train a generative AI system.

The music publisher lawsuit appears to be the first case involving song lyrics and the first time targeting Anthropic, who has financial support from Google, Amazon, and former cryptocurrency billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried.

The lawsuit states that Anthropic has violated the issuer's copyright by copying their lyrics without permission as part of a "very large amount of text" taken from the internet to train Claude in responding to human demand.

Publishers also claimed that Claude illegally reproduced the lyrics at the request, responding to "various requests that are not looking for Issuers lyrics," including "the request to write songs on certain topics, providing chordal progression for certain musical compositions, or writing poetry or short stories in certain artist or authoric styles."

For example, in the lawsuit, it was stated that Claude would provide the relevant lyrics of Don McLean's "American Pie" when asked to write a song about the death of rock pioneer Buddy Holly.

The publisher asked the court to provide compensation for the money and an order to stop the alleged violation.