Sony, EMI and Warner Chappell Sue Anthropic Over 1.5 Billion Book-Piracy Deal
Updated
Updated · Ars Technica · Aug 31
Sony, EMI and Warner Chappell Sue Anthropic Over 1.5 Billion Book-Piracy Deal
3 articles · Updated · Ars Technica · Aug 31
Summary
$1.5 billion is too small to deter Anthropic after its book-piracy settlement, Sony, EMI and Warner Chappell said in a new lawsuit alleging the company also torrented thousands of copyrighted songs to train Claude.
The publishers say Anthropic’s training data included songbooks, sheet music and collections covering the Beatles, Taylor Swift and major rock songs, enabling Claude to reproduce lyrics and generate tracks that mimic artists’ styles.
Benjamin Mann allegedly began the torrenting campaign in July 2021 through LibGen, with CEO Dario Amodei approving it; both co-founders are named as defendants alongside Anthropic.
The suit seeks an injunction to stop further AI training on the allegedly pirated music, arguing songwriters are already being harmed as AI-generated works compete in music charts and artist markets.