Lawsuit Filed Against Anthropic for 'Playing Thousands of Songs' Claim

Music publishers have filed a lawsuit claiming that the artificial intelligence company Anthropic used hit songs like Mariah Carey's "All I Want For Christmas Is You" without permission. Sony Music Publishing and Warner Chappell, music publishers managing the copyrights on behalf of songwriters and composers, allege that Anthropic misused tens of thousands of copyrighted works. The lawsuit mentions that alongside the songs, works such as Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell's "Ain’t No Mountain High Enough" and Survivor's "Eye of the Tiger" are also included. The lawsuit filed in California targets Anthropic's CEO Dario Amodei and co-founder Benjamin Mann. Allegedly, these individuals used the lyrics of copyrighted works to train Claude AI models through "torrenting, scraping, and downloading." Additionally, it is claimed that they reproduced the lyrics in response to user requests. The lawsuit alleges that Mann and Anthropic downloaded at least 7 million book copies from pirate sites, including works like Bon Jovi's "Livin’ on a Prayer" and Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah." Music publishers state that Anthropic caused copyright holders to lose valuable attributions by removing the song's identifiers during processing. Publishers express that Anthropic aims to avoid paying licensing fees to music publishers by copying works without permission. The total damages of the lawsuit could reach billions of dollars, with penalties of up to $150,000 per infringement and claims of $25,000 for each identifier removed or altered. As Anthropic prepares for its stock market listing, the company announced that it will vigorously defend against the allegations related to this lawsuit in the music industry. The company had previously settled another lawsuit regarding authors' copyright for $1.5 billion. These developments highlight an important discussion on copyright infringements in the field of artificial intelligence, while showcasing the increasing efforts to protect the rights of the music industry.