Sony Music and Warner Chappell filed a lawsuit against Anthropic in the US District Court for the Northern District of California, claiming the company used tens of thousands of copyrighted works to train its AI models. The plaintiffs seek damages of up to $150,000 per work, plus an additional $25,000 for every instance where identifiable copyright data was removed. If a court awards the maximum figures, the total liability could reach several billion dollars. This action follows a recent settlement where Anthropic agreed to pay $1.5 billion to authors after the publishing industry alleged the company trained its models on pirated books. Anthropic has previously faced multiple legal challenges from Universal Music Group and other entities regarding lyric copyright infringement. The new suit highlights the growing tension between major music publishers and AI developers over training data rights. It also reflects a pattern of aggressive litigation targeting the same defendant across different media sectors. The outcome will likely set a precedent for how copyright holders can claim value from AI systems that process their material without explicit permission.
- The lawsuit specifically targets the use of tens of thousands of copyrighted works for model training.
- Maximum potential damages could total several billion dollars if the court rules in favour of the plaintiffs.
- This case follows a $1.5 billion settlement Anthropic reached with the publishing industry regarding pirated books.
