Sony, Warner Sue Anthropic Over 'Brazen Campaign' of IP Theft

Sony Music Publishing and Warner Chappell are suing Anthropic for alleged copyright infringement.

Sony Music Publishing and Warner Chappell have filed a lawsuit against Anthropic in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. The music publishers accuse Anthropic of a "brazen campaign" of intellectual property theft, specifically alleging that the AI lab illegally torrented, scraped, and downloaded copyrighted works to train its AI model, Claude. They are seeking damages of up to $150,000 per work for "tens of thousands" of copyrighted works.

Anthropic is accused of "blatant theft" and "flagrant piracy" through illegal torrenting to obtain millions of copies of books, including those containing lyrics and sheet music. This lawsuit builds on previous intellectual property cases Anthropic has faced, including the Bartz v. Anthropic case, where authors accused the company of using copyrighted works to train products like Claude. Anthropic stated, "We disagree with the publishers’ claims and we intend to defend ourselves robustly in court."

This latest legal action represents a broad accusation of illegal piracy against Anthropic. The case highlights ongoing tensions between content creators and AI developers regarding the use of copyrighted material for training AI models. The outcome could have significant implications for the development and deployment of AI technologies.

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