In brief

• Presley's rights holders have sued Anthropic in California over alleged unlicensed use of 274 of his songs to train Claude.
• The plaintiffs seek more than $41 million, about $150,000 per song.
• Anthropic reportedly disputes the claims and plans to defend itself in court.

Lawsuit filed in California

The rights holders of Presley's music have brought a case against Anthropic, the company behind the Claude chatbot, before a court in California. According to media reports, the filing concerns 274 songs that were allegedly used to train Anthropic's models without a licence or payment (KI-Entwicklung: Elvis-Rechteinhaber verklagen KI-Konzern Anthropic – ZEIT ONLINE) (Los herederos de Elvis Presley demandan a la empresa de IA Anthropic por 36 millones de euros – EL PAÍS) (Elvis Presley’s rights holders sue Anthropic saying it trained AI on his music – NBCNews.com).

Claims and damages

The plaintiffs are asking for more than $41 million in combined damages, roughly $150,000 per song (Claude: KI mit Elvis-Songs gefüttert – Millionenklage gegen Anthropic – DER SPIEGEL) (Owners of Elvis’s music sued Anthropic for using songs to train AI models without permission – The New York Times). Newspapers put that figure at around 36 to 37 million euros (Musik - Rechteinhaber von Elvis Presley verklagen das KI-Unternehmen Anthropic – Deutschlandfunk).

Beyond the training allegations, the complaint says Claude generates outputs that reproduce protected lyrics or create unauthorised adaptations of the songs, and that this is still happening. The plaintiffs further accuse Anthropic of bypassing technical protection measures and of removing or altering copyright notices.

Part of a wider legal fight

Music publishers and rights holders have increasingly pursued AI developers over their use of copyrighted material. Billboard described the case as one of the most prominent lawsuits so far brought on behalf of a single musician. OpenAI and other AI firms face similar complaints about how their models were trained.

Anthropic has reportedly rejected the allegations, and a company representative said it intends to defend itself in court.