Music publishers led by Concord Music Group and Universal Music Group have filed a lawsuit against Anthropic, accusing the AI company of illegally downloading more than 20,000 copyrighted songs. The suit claims these materials, including sheet music, lyrics, and compositions, were used to train Anthropic’s Claude chatbot.
Universal Music Group named specific tracks in the complaint, such as songs by The Rolling Stones, Neil Diamond, and Elton John. Concord Music Group, an independent publisher representing artists including Common, Killer Mike, and Korn, joined the action. The publishers seek damages exceeding $3 billion, which they describe as one of the largest non-class action copyright cases in U.S. history.
The lawsuit states: “While Anthropic misleadingly claims to be an AI ‘safety and research’ company, its record of illegal torrenting of copyrighted works makes clear that its multibillion-dollar business empire has in fact been built on piracy.”
The case was filed by the same legal team that represented plaintiffs in last year’s Bartz v. Anthropic lawsuit. During discovery in that prior case, the music publishers uncovered evidence that Anthropic had illegally downloaded thousands of songs.
The Bartz v. Anthropic case concluded in 2023 with a $1.5 billion award to 500,000 affected writers. The settlement provided $3,000 per work to the authors whose published materials Anthropic had illegally downloaded for AI training purposes.
In the Bartz ruling, U.S. District Judge William Alsup determined that AI companies may legally train models on copyrighted content but cannot acquire it through piracy. The publishers argue this distinction applies here, noting that Anthropic could have avoided liability by paying for access to the songs.
Anthropic’s valuation stands at around $350 billion.
