Authentic Brands Group Sues Anthropic over Elvis Presley songs used in AI training

Authentic Brands Group sued Anthropic on Friday. The lawsuit alleges Anthropic trained AI models on 274 Elvis Presley songs without permission. The lawsuit was first reported by Billboard. Authentic Brands Group owns Presley’s music rights.

The company also owns Presley’s likeness rights.

The complaint names Can’t Help Falling in Love, All Shook Up and A Little Less Conversation. The document also lists Don’t Be Cruel. Plaintiffs seek $150,000 for each infringed track. There are 274 tracks in the complaint.

The total damages come to about $41 million. The amount is also about £31 million.

Richard Busch is the lead attorney. He alleged Anthropic’s whole business model rests on copyright infringement at a scale no one has seen before. Busch said the company constructed its entire operation on infringement unlike anything seen before. The assertion is an allegation in the lawsuit.

The lawsuit alleges Claude created infringing output of copyrighted material. The material came from virtually every song in every online catalogue. The claims cover material since Claude’s inception.

Court documents say Claude continued to infringe after guardrails were added. The continued infringement included requests to recreate specific songs. The requests were for a modern audience. The News International reported the court documents this way: “These renders keep landing very close to the originals: same structure, same hooks reused with light rewording, and full sets of verses/choruses/bridges.”

The suit alleges Anthropic added ineffective guardrails after being caught. The company knew the guardrails failed. Anthropic knowingly continues to infringe musical copyrights. Guardrails work as safety filters that try to block problematic outputs.

Anthropic has not publicly commented on the lawsuit.

The case is among the first major lawsuits brought directly by an artist’s estate against an AI developer. Its outcome could set a wider precedent for AI companies’ use of existing music catalogues.

The Guardian reported that other AI developers have faced copyright claims. The Recording Industry Association of America has brought claims against AI developers. Sony has pursued copyright claims against AI developers. Universal has pursued copyright claims against AI developers.

Warner Records has pursued copyright claims against AI developers.

AI music platforms analyze large volumes of recordings. The platforms learn sounds from the recordings. They learn structures from the recordings. They learn expression from the recordings.

Users generate music through text prompts. Users also generate music through spoken prompts.

Musicians have repeatedly raised concerns that AI models use their music and voices without consent. Musicians fear AI-generated music could displace songs made by people. Some AI bots impersonate living artists on music streaming platforms.

Spotify announced it removed about 50 million songs considered AI slop from user recommendations. The removals took place over the past year. AI slop describes material produced by generative models that platforms treat as low quality.