Anthropic sued over alleged theft of ‘tens of thousands’ of songs

Major music publishing companies, including Sony Music and Warner Music, have filed a multibillion-dollar lawsuit against artificial intelligence startup Anthropic in a California federal court. The legal action alleges that the company engaged in the mass theft and misuse of tens of thousands of copyrighted songs without permission or payment to train its Claude AI models.

This new litigation builds upon existing legal pressure against Anthropic, which was already facing copyright infringement lawsuits filed in 2023 and earlier this year by Universal Music Group. The collective legal challenges highlight ongoing industry tensions regarding the unauthorized utilization of vast back catalogues of copyrighted creative works for artificial intelligence training.