Sony Music and Warner Sue Anthropic Over Alleged Copyrighted Music Training Practices

Sony Music Publishing, Warner Chappell and other music publishers have sued Anthropic, accusing the AI company of using copyrighted works without permission to train its Claude AI models.

The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, alleges that Anthropic engaged in unauthorised scraping, torrenting, and downloading of copyrighted material. Music Business Worldwide first reported the complaint.

The publishers claim Anthropic used thousands of protected works, including material containing lyrics and sheet music, to train Claude. Anthropic rejected the allegations and said it intends to defend itself in court.

“We disagree with the publishers’ claims, and we intend to defend ourselves robustly in court,” an Anthropic spokesperson said.

The lawsuit follows other legal challenges over AI training data. Some of the same lawyers involved in this case also represent Concord Music Group and Universal Music Group in a separate lawsuit against Anthropic.

The legal team previously worked on the Bartz v. Anthropic case, where authors accused the company of using copyrighted books to train Claude. A judge ruled that AI training could be allowed in certain circumstances, but found that obtaining material through piracy was illegal. Anthropic was later ordered to pay $1.5 billion in that case.

The latest lawsuit expands the copyright dispute, alleging that Anthropic obtained large amounts of creative content through illegal means. The case adds to the wider debate over how AI companies acquire and use copyrighted material for model development.