● Covered by 1 source · 1 reportMedium impact1 negative
Sony Music and Warner Chappell Sue Anthropic for Copyright Infringement
Key points
- Sony Music and Warner Chappell filed a lawsuit against Anthropic.
- The suit alleges use of "tens of thousands" of copyrighted works.
- Damages sought could reach billions of dollars.
- Anthropic co-founders Dario Amodei and Benjamin Mann are also named.
Copyright Infringement Lawsuit Filed
Sony Music and Warner Chappell have initiated legal action against Anthropic in the US District Court for the Northern District of California. The lawsuit claims Anthropic used "tens of thousands" of copyrighted musical works without authorization to train its artificial intelligence models.
The plaintiffs are seeking damages of up to $150,000 per copyrighted work, in addition to up to $25,000 for each instance where identifiable copyright data was removed. If the court rules in favor of Sony and Warner and awards the maximum amounts, the total damages could amount to several billion dollars.
Allegations Against Anthropic and Founders
The complaint describes Anthropic's actions as "one of the largest and most blatant ongoing thefts of intellectual property in history." It specifically names Anthropic co-founders Dario Amodei and Benjamin Mann as individual defendants.
The suit alleges that Benjamin Mann downloaded over five million pirated books via BitTorrent, and that other Anthropic employees downloaded at least two million more from Pirate Library Mirror. It also claims that Anthropic scraped lyrics from licensed sites like MusixMatch and LyricFind.
Previous Legal Challenges
This lawsuit is the latest in a series of legal challenges for Anthropic. The company recently settled a lawsuit with the publishing industry for $1.5 billion. It has also faced multiple lawsuits from Universal Music Group, Concord, and ABKCO, as well as separate suits from BMG and Round Hill Music.
Specific Works Cited
The lawsuit identifies specific songs found within Anthropic’s training data. These include "Ain’t No Mountain High Enough" by Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell, Bon Jovi’s "Livin’ On a Prayer," Earth, Wind & Fire’s "September," Leonard Cohen’s "Hallelujah," and Taylor Swift’s "Paper Rings."
✨ This summary was generated by AI from the outlets' reporting listed below. It is not independently verified and may contain errors — check the original sources. How BrevFeed works →
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Reporting from
Sony Music and Warner Chappell have filed a lawsuit against Anthropic, alleging the AI company used "tens of thousands" of copyrighted works without permission to train its Claude AI models. The suit seeks up to $150,000 per work, potentially totaling billions, and names Anthropic's co-founders as individual defendants, claiming they were involved in illegal downloading of content.