// AI
Sony Music, Warner Chappell Sue Anthropic Over AI Training Data
Sony Music Publishing and Warner Chappell, along with other music publishers, have sued AI developer Anthropic, alleging widespread copyright infringement related to the training of its Claude AI model.
- Sony Music Publishing and Warner Chappell are suing Anthropic.
- The lawsuit alleges illegal torrenting and scraping of copyrighted works.
- Anthropic is accused of using these works to train its Claude AI model.
- Anthropic stated it disagrees with the claims and will defend itself.
- This is not Anthropic's first intellectual property lawsuit.
Music publishers, including Sony Music Publishing and Warner Chappell, have filed a lawsuit against AI company Anthropic and its co-founders, Dario Amodei and Benjamin Mann. The complaint, lodged in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California on August 29, 2026, accuses Anthropic of a
The lawsuit claims Anthropic engaged in a
An Anthropic spokesperson responded to the allegations in an emailed statement, indicating the company disagrees with the publishers' claims and intends to defend itself vigorously in court.
Allegations of Piracy and Theft
The publishers specifically allege that Anthropic committed
This broad lawsuit builds upon previous legal challenges against Anthropic. It specifically highlights the alleged illegal torrenting of millions of books, including those containing lyrics and sheet music, as a method for acquiring training data.
History of Intellectual Property Disputes
This is not the first time Anthropic has faced legal action concerning intellectual property. Some of the same legal representatives involved in the current case also represent Concord Music Group and Universal Music Group in a separate lawsuit filed in January.
Notably, these lawyers also led the Bartz v. Anthropic case, where a group of authors accused Anthropic of using copyrighted materials to train its AI products, including
In the Bartz case, a judge ruled that while Anthropic's use of copyrighted works was permissible, the method of acquiring that content through piracy was not. Anthropic was subsequently ordered to pay $1.5 billion in that landmark decision.
While the arguments in the current lawsuit share similarities with past cases, the music publishers' complaint is described as particularly broad. It expands on previous accusations by detailing the alleged