Anthropic faces copyright lawsuit over alleged use of 500 songs to train Claude AI

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Anthropic is facing a new copyright lawsuit over claims that it used hundreds of songs to train its Claude AI chatbot.

Independent music publisher Round Hill Music claims Anthropic used lyrics from at least 500 songs that it has rights to.

Round Hill has also sued Suno over alleged use of the same songs.

Anthropic faces copyright lawsuit over alleged use of 500 songs to train Claude AI

Anthropic is facing a new copyright lawsuit over claims that it used hundreds of songs to train its Claude AI chatbot. Independent music publisher Round Hill Music filed the lawsuit in a California federal court on Monday, reports Reuters. The music publisher claims Anthropic used lyrics from at least 500 songs that it has rights to. These songs include works by artists such as James Brown, The Kinks and the Goo Goo Dolls. Round Hill has also sued Suno over alleged use of the same songs to train its AI music generation system.

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Round Hill said Anthropic used the lyrics to help Claude learn how to respond to human prompts. The music publisher told the court that the number of works involved could increase significantly. It said it may add “ten thousand or more” compositions to the lawsuits. Round Hill is seeking damages that could “potentially approach or conceivably exceed $1 billion.”

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Round Hill CEO Josh Gruss said the company plans to continue with the cases and seek compensation for songwriters and artists. “We intend to take these cases to trial and to hold these companies accountable, and we will not accept a resolution that leaves songwriters and artists deprived of their rightful share of compensation,” Gruss was quoted as saying in the report.

The lawsuits are part of a growing legal fight between copyright owners and AI companies. Publishers, authors, music companies and news organisations have accused major technology firms of using copyrighted material to train AI systems without permission.

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Anthropic has already faced other copyright cases involving books and music. Last year, the Amazon-backed AI company agreed to pay $1.5 billion to settle a class-action lawsuit brought by a group of authors.

The company is also facing separate legal action from Universal Music Group and BMG Rights Management over the alleged use of song lyrics to train its AI systems.

Suno is also facing its own copyright lawsuits from major music companies, including Universal Music Group and Sony Music.

Ayushi Jain

Ayushi Jain

Ayushi works as Chief Copy Editor at Digit, covering everything from breaking tech news to in-depth smartphone reviews. Prior to Digit, she was part of the editorial team at IANS. View Full Profile