Legal Action Against Anthropic
Three major music publishers, namely Universal Music, Concord Music Group, and ABKCO Music, are urging a federal court judge to grant a preliminary injunction against Anthropic, an artificial intelligence (AI) company. The injunction seeks to prevent Anthropic from reproducing or distributing copyrighted song lyrics owned by the publishers. In their motion filed on Thursday, the publishers request the court to mandate Anthropic to establish effective safeguards preventing its AI models from using the copyrighted lyrics and to prohibit the company from utilizing these works to train future AI models.
The legal action against Anthropic was initiated on October 18, with the publishers accusing the San Francisco-based company of engaging in “systematic and widespread” infringement of their copyrighted song lyrics. The allegation is that Anthropic utilized these lyrics without permission, incorporating them into the vast amount of text it scrapes from the internet to train its AI assistant, known as “Claude.” According to the publishers, when users ask Claude for song lyrics, it generates identical or nearly identical copies, including hits like “Sweet Home Alabama” or “Every Breath You Take.”
Expansive Scope of Anthropic’s AI Infringement
Anthropic’s generative AI extends its infringement to various requests, such as writing a song on a specific topic, providing chord progressions, or creating poetry in the style of a particular artist. For instance, the lawsuit highlights that Claude incorporates lyrics from Don McLean’s “American Pie” when asked to compose a song about the death of rock pioneer Buddy Holly.
The publishers assert that Anthropic has substantially benefited from the improper use of their copyrighted works, achieving a valuation of $5 billion while allegedly neglecting payments to publishers and songwriters. In a statement supporting their request for a preliminary injunction, the publishers emphasize that Anthropic should not be allowed to disregard copyright law. They argue that waiting until the end of the litigation to address the ongoing infringement would result in irreversible damage.
Seeking redress, the publishers are asking the court for monetary damages of up to $150,000 per infringed work and an order to halt the alleged infringement by Anthropic.
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