TLDR
A federal lawsuit was initiated by Sony Music Publishing and Warner Chappell Music against Anthropic in Northern California on Friday
The legal action alleges Anthropic unlawfully obtained and utilized copyrighted musical compositions for Claude AI development
High-profile tracks cited include “Eye of the Tiger,” “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough,” and Taylor Swift’s “Paper Rings”
Plaintiffs demand statutory damages reaching $150,000 for each infringed composition
Anthropic has rejected the allegations, stating it plans to “defend ourselves robustly in court”
Two major music publishing powerhouses, Sony Music Publishing and Warner Chappell Music, have initiated legal proceedings against Anthropic, the artificial intelligence firm responsible for the Claude chatbot, claiming the company utilized thousands of protected musical works without authorization during AI model development.
Sony Music Publishing and Warner Chappell are suing Anthropic, Dario Amodei and Benjamin Mann.
They allege Claude was trained on tens of thousands of copyrighted songs obtained through torrenting and scraping.
They’re seeking up to $150K per work. https://t.co/1Js7i8MRgB pic.twitter.com/1Vx8SICnb0
— Wall St Engine (@wallstengine) August 29, 2026
The legal complaint was submitted Friday to a federal court in Northern California. Anthropic co-founders Dario Amodei and Benjamin Mann were identified as defendants along with the corporation.
Details of the Infringement Allegations
According to the publishers, Anthropic conducted a “brazen campaign of illegally torrenting, scraping, and downloading copyrighted works on a massive scale.” The legal filing identifies popular compositions such as “Eye of the Tiger,” Marvin Gaye’s “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough,” Mariah Carey’s holiday classic “All I Want for Christmas is You,” and Taylor Swift’s “Paper Rings.”
Additional works mentioned in the complaint include “Livin’ On a Prayer,” “September,” “Great Balls of Fire,” “Ramblin’ Man,” and “Hallelujah.”
The legal action alleges that Anthropic obtained portions of this content via two unauthorized digital repositories: Library Genesis and Pirate Library Mirror. These platforms housed literary works containing song lyrics and musical notations.
This allegation builds on a June 2025 judicial determination that established Anthropic had acquired over 7 million unlicensed books from these identical sources. While a judge subsequently determined that utilizing copyrighted literature for AI training constituted fair use, Anthropic ultimately paid more than $1.5 billion to resolve a separate class-action claim brought by authors regarding pirated materials.
Publishers’ Demands and Concerns
Sony and Warner Chappell contend that Claude possesses the capability to generate copyrighted lyrics when responding to user queries. They assert this functionality could enable the AI system to substitute for authorized lyric platforms and damage the commercial market for human-generated musical content.
The publishing houses are requesting a jury trial along with statutory damages totaling up to $150,000 for every composition Anthropic purportedly misappropriated.
Anthropic has disputed the accusations. “We disagree with the publishers’ claims and we intend to defend ourselves robustly in court,” a company representative stated.
This legal challenge represents not Anthropic’s initial encounter with music copyright disputes. A 2023 legal action from Universal Music Group, Concord Music Group, and ABKCO led to court-sanctioned restrictions mandating that Anthropic prevent Claude from generating copyrighted lyrics in user interactions.
Sony Music Publishing operates as a division of Sony Group Corp. Warner Chappell functions as a subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
Anthropic recently disclosed preliminary second-quarter revenue exceeding $11.5 billion, representing a more than 14-fold increase compared to the corresponding period in the previous year. The organization also achieved its initial positive adjusted operating income as it considers a potential public offering.
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