Anthropic Sued for $54 Million Over Alleged Copyright Infringement Involving Elvis Presley

Artificial intelligence (AI) startup Anthropic is facing a major copyright infringement lawsuit over allegations that it used songs by legendary pop star Elvis Presley (1935–1977) to train its AI without permission. The unprecedented scale of the alleged infringement is expected to send ripples through the generative AI industry.

AI ecosystem built on unauthorized training sparks debate over creators’ rights

According to major news outlets, including the Los Angeles Times, organizations in a partnership that manages the intellectual property (IP) of Elvis Presley and 274 of his signature songs, including Authentic Brands Group (ABG), filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Anthropic on the 23rd (local time) in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

In the complaint, the plaintiffs sharply criticized the company, saying, “Defendant built its business model on copyright infringement on an unprecedented scale,” and “It used humanity’s greatest works without permission, monopolized the enormous profits it illegally obtained from them, and completely disregarded the legitimate rights of creators and rights holders.”

The plaintiffs allege that Anthropic stored Presley classics, including “All Shook Up” and “Can’t Help Falling in Love,” in a central library without authorization and used them extensively to train its next-generation large language model (LLM), Claude. They also stressed that the company caused serious financial harm to copyright holders by allowing Claude users to easily create derivative songs with structures, rhythms and choruses similar to those of the originals.

The plaintiffs are seeking punitive damages of up to $150,000 per song for the 274 allegedly infringed works, for a total of $41.1 million (about $54.5 million). They also asked the court for a permanent injunction against copyright infringement and the complete destruction of unauthorized copies already used in training. Anthropic, meanwhile, said it “disagrees with the claims” and would vigorously defend itself through the legal process.

Copyright disputes persist, with AI industry-wide fallout possible

This is not the first time Anthropic has faced allegations of copyright infringement. Last year, it was embroiled in a class-action lawsuit brought by prominent authors after allegedly using pirated books as training data without permission. The case was ultimately settled for a massive $1.5 billion.

The music industry is also pushing back. In January this year, major record companies, including Universal Music Group (UMG) and Concord Music Group, opened a legal battle against Anthropic over the unauthorized use and infringement of copyrighted song lyrics. Global major record labels are also pursuing or preparing similar lawsuits to curb the indiscriminate data scraping of generative AI, raising the prospect of an even fiercer legal battle over AI development and copyright protection.