Major music publishers Sony Music Publishing and Warner Chappell Music have launched a substantial legal action against artificial intelligence company Anthropic, claiming widespread unauthorized use of their catalog. The complaint was submitted to a California federal court on Friday and identifies company leadership, including CEO Dario Amodei and cofounder Benjamin Mann, as defendants alongside the organization itself.
According to the filing, Anthropic allegedly obtained copyrighted musical content through illegal downloading and scraping techniques to train its Claude artificial intelligence system. The publishers assert that Anthropic benefited financially from these unlicensed works and point to specific popular songs including “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” and “Eye of the Tiger” as examples of stolen material. Sony and Warner are seeking monetary compensation ranging from $150,000 to $25,000 per violation, with potential total damages reaching billions of dollars given the thousands of tracks allegedly involved.
This case follows Anthropic’s previous legal troubles related to intellectual property. The company settled a comparable dispute with book publishers for $1.5 billion earlier this year. Additionally, Universal Music Group, alongside Concord Music Group and ABKCO Music, have separately pursued their own copyright infringement claims against Anthropic, with their most recent action seeking over $3 billion in damages.
Originally reported by Mashable →
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