Sony Music and Warner Chappell File Copyright Lawsuit Against Anthropic
Music companies are seeking billions of dollars in damages, alleging the unauthorized use of tens of thousands of copyrighted works to train Claude AI models.
Sony Music and Warner Chappell have filed a copyright lawsuit in California against AI company Anthropic and its co-founders, alleging the unauthorized use of tens of thousands of copyrighted works.
Copyright Lawsuit Filed in Court
Sony Music and Warner Chappell initiated a formal copyright lawsuit against Anthropic and its co-founders in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.
Multi-Billion Dollar Damage Claim
The plaintiff companies are seeking damages of up to $150,000 for each copyrighted work and up to $25,000 for each instance where copyrighted data was deleted.
It is noted that if the court imposes maximum penalties, the total amount of compensation could reach several billion dollars.
Other Lawsuits Filed Against Anthropic
This lawsuit marks the latest major legal proceeding initiated against Anthropic, following a case brought by the publishing sector that recently concluded with a $1.5 billion settlement.
The company had previously faced separate lawsuits from names such as Universal Music Group, Concord, ABKCO, BMG, and Round Hill Music.
Co-Founders and Allegations
In addition to the corporate entity, co-founders Dario Amodei and Benjamin Mann were named as individual defendants in the lawsuit.
The complaint alleges that Mann used BitTorrent to download pirated books and that employees downloaded millions of files via the Pirate Library Mirror.
Songs Included in Training Data
Songs alleged to be included in Anthropic's training data include works by Marvin Gaye, Bon Jovi, Earth, Wind & Fire, Leonard Cohen, and Taylor Swift.