Sony Music Publishing and Warner Chappell Music sued Anthropic on August 28 over alleged mass copyright infringement. The lawsuit, filed in Northern California, accused Anthropic, Dario Amodei, and cofounder Benjamin Mann of using copyrighted music without permission.
The publishers mentioned that Anthropic obtained songs through torrenting and scraping, then used copies to train and operate Claude AI models.
The complaint covered tens of thousands of musical works, including Eye of the Tiger, September, Uptown Funk, and Paper Rings. It alleged Anthropic copied lyrics and compositions multiple times during training and through generated outputs. The publishers also claimed Claude can reproduce copyrighted lyrics after repeated prompts and repeatedly bypass safeguards built into the system.
The filing described the alleged activity as a “brazen campaign” of illegally torrenting, scraping, and downloading works. It also linked the allegations to earlier litigation involving pirated books and Anthropic’s data acquisition practices.
The publishers sought statutory damages reaching $150,000 for every work that qualifies as willfully infringed. They also sought up to $25,000 for each alleged removal or alteration of copyright management information. With tens of thousands of works involved, the theoretical financial exposure could potentially reach several billion dollars.
The lawsuit also asked for a jury trial, destruction of infringing copies, and detailed information about Claude’s training data. The claims, however, remain allegations, and a federal court must determine whether Anthropic infringed copyrights under US law.
On the other hand, Anthropic rejected the publishers’ claims and said it planned to defend itself in court. “We disagree with the publishers’ claims, and we intend to defend ourselves robustly in court,” an Anthropic spokesperson told TechCrunch.
The case adds pressure to Anthropic as major music publishers expand copyright litigation against AI companies. It also shifts attention toward data sourcing, licensing, and how generative AI handles protected creative works across commercial applications.
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