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Elvis Presley's rights holders sue Anthropic

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The owners of Elvis Presley's music rights have filed a copyright suit against Anthropic over 274 songs. They claim Claude models were trained on the songs without permission and still produce infringing output.

By: Mikola Máté Patrik · · 2 min read

Rows of second-hand vinyl records in a record store
Image: Fabien Barral / Unsplash · CC0 · CC0, originally published on Unsplash, via Wikimedia Commons · Source

What happened?

Authentic Brands Group, which controls Elvis Presley's music and likeness, sued Anthropic on Friday together with other rights holders (NBC News). The suit was first reported by Billboard. The plaintiffs claim Anthropic infringed the copyrights of 274 Presley songs without a license or payment, including Can't Help Falling in Love, All Shook Up and A Little Less Conversation.

What they allege

  • The songs were used for training throughout the entire development of the Claude models.
  • The infringement continues today because users get outputs that reproduce copyrighted lyrics or create unauthorized adaptations.
  • According to the complaint, Anthropic knew its lyric guardrails were ineffective, so the plaintiffs call the infringement willful.
  • They seek $150,000 per song, about $41 million in total (
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  • ).

Lead attorney Richard Busch writes in the complaint that Anthropic built its entire business model on copyright infringement at a scale never seen before. An Anthropic spokesperson told NBC News: "We disagree with the claims and intend to defend this case fully."

Why it matters

Music publishers and labels have sued AI companies before, but the Guardian calls this one of the first major cases brought directly by an artist's estate. Last year Anthropic agreed to a $1.5 billion settlement with authors who sued over training on pirated books, the largest settlement in US copyright history. The new suit shows that training-data legal risk for model makers is far from settled. If you use AI to process lyrics or other protected content, watch the licensing of your own use as well.

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