OMM Newsroom
Rights holders to Elvis Presley’s music catalog have sued artificial intelligence company “Anthropic”, alleging it used 274 songs recorded by the singer to train its “Claude” models without permission, Anadolu Agency reported, citing The Guardian.
The lawsuit was filed Friday in the US District Court for the Northern District of California by a subsidiary of Authentic Brands Group, which acquired Presley’s intellectual property and trademark rights in 2013.
The plaintiffs include music publishers Raleigh Music Publishing and Abilene Music, along with trusts linked to songwriter Luigi Creatore and the Aberbach family, whose publishing business controlled rights to songs recorded by Presley.
The complaint alleges that “Anthropic” copied the songs without a licence or payment and kept them in an internal repository for training future versions of “Claude”.
The songs named in the catalog include “Can’t Help Falling in Love”, “All Shook Up”, “Don’t Be Cruel”, “A Little Less Conversation” and “Return to Sender”.
The plaintiffs are seeking $150,000 for each of the 274 songs they say were infringed, amounting to $41.1 million. Additional damages would bring their total claim to $48.6 million.
Lead attorney Richard Busch accused “Anthropic” of building its business on copyright infringement and said the plaintiffs were “deeply protective” of the songs.
“Anthropic” disputed the allegations. “We disagree with the claims and intend to defend this case fully,” the company told NBC News.
The case is among a growing number of copyright disputes between AI developers and the music industry. It could have broader implications for how copyrighted music is used to train AI models.
