Sony and Warner accuse Anthropic of pirating music to train its AI
Who needs a record deal when you’ve got a torrent client?
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- Sony Music Publishing and Warner Chappell accuse Anthropic of using copyrighted songs to train Claude without permission.
- The labels say Anthropic obtained works through torrenting, scraping, downloads, and illegal online libraries.
- The complaint says tens of thousands of songs may be involved.
- The labels seek up to $150,000 for each alleged copyright infringement.
Key Takeaways by nexos.ai, reviewed by Cybernews staff.
Sony Music Publishing and Warner Chappell are suing Anthropic, accusing the AI company of training Claude on thousands of copyrighted songs and lyrics without permission.
According to the indictment, Anthropic is accountable for “one of the largest and most blatant thefts of intellectual property in history.”
The AI allegedly conducted a campaign of illegally torrenting, scraping, and downloading copyright-protected works “on a massive scale” to train its AI model Claude.
“In blatant violation of copyright law, defendants have unlawfully acquired troves of music publishers’ musical compositions, and then systematically copied those works multiple times, including as the inputs to train Anthropic’s Claude AI models and in the outputs those models generate. These acts separately and together inflict immense harm on music publishers and the songwriters they proudly represent,” the court document states.
The music labels refer to another lawsuit against Anthropic, in which the AI company admitted it had downloaded copyrighted material via shadow libraries such as Library Genesis (LibGen) and Pirate Library Mirror (PiLiMi). This class-action lawsuit was settled for $1.5 billion.
The plaintiffs claim that among the millions of books that Anthropic obtained from illegal online sources were books containing the lyrics and sheet music for “hundreds or more” artists represented by the music labels. Therefore, tens of thousands of songs are potentially involved in this case.
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Anthropic is also accused of removing or altering copyright management information while collecting and processing training data.
Sony and Warner don’t know the full extent of Anthropic’s illegal downloads because the company allegedly continues to conceal crucial details of its infringement.
The plaintiffs are seeking damages of up to $150,000 for each copyright infringement and up to $25,000 for each copyright removal violation.
Last month, the Munich Regional Court ruled that Suno unlawfully trained its AI model with copyright-protected songs from GEMA’s repertoire in the US. A Suno spokesperson said that it’s considering appealing the court’s decision.
