Sony Music, Warner Chappell Sue Anthropic Over 10,000s of Works, Seeking Billions
Updated
Updated · The Verge · Aug 29
Sony Music, Warner Chappell Sue Anthropic Over 10,000s of Works, Seeking Billions
3 articles · Updated · The Verge · Aug 29
Summary
Sony Music and Warner Chappell sued Anthropic in federal court in California, seeking damages tied to tens of thousands of allegedly infringed copyrighted works.
The complaint seeks up to $150,000 per work plus up to $25,000 for each stripped copyright-management entry, putting potential damages in the billions if the court awards the maximum.
Anthropic, co-founder Dario Amodei and co-founder Benjamin Mann are named as defendants; the suit alleges Mann torrented more than 5 million pirated books and employees downloaded at least 2 million more from Pirate Library Mirror.
The publishers also allege Anthropic scraped lyrics from licensed sites including MusixMatch and LyricFind to train its Claude AI models, citing songs such as “Hallelujah,” “September” and Taylor Swift’s “Paper Rings.”
The case adds to Anthropic’s mounting copyright fights after a recent $1.5 billion settlement with publishers and separate lawsuits from Universal Music Group, Concord, ABKCO, BMG and Round Hill Music.