Major Music Publishers Sue Anthropic for Allegedly Pirating Thousands of Copyrighted Songs to Train Claude AI
Summary
Sony, EMI, and Warner Chappell are suing Anthropic, alleging the AI giant illegally torrented thousands of copyrighted songs to train its Claude AI, with internal messages showing employees and co-founders knowingly embracing piracy — including co-founder Dario Amodei allegedly approving torrenting to avoid a 'legal slog' — while Claude continues reproducing lyrics and generating music that directly competes with human artists.
Key Points
- Sony, EMI, and Warner Chappell are suing Anthropic, alleging the AI company illegally torrented thousands of copyrighted musical compositions to train its Claude models, following a $1.5 billion settlement with book authors that publishers call insufficient to deter future infringement.
- Internal Anthropic staff messages, including one employee writing 'zlibrary my beloved,' are being cited as evidence that the company knowingly embraced piracy, with co-founder Benjamin Mann personally using BitTorrent to download millions of pirated books and co-founder Dario Amodei allegedly approving the torrenting to avoid what he called a 'legal/practice/business slog.'
- Music publishers argue that Claude is actively harming songwriters by reproducing copyrighted lyrics, generating AI songs that mimic popular works, and competing directly with human artists on music charts, while Anthropic has never sought licensing deals with publishers and continues to exploit their works without compensation.