SAN FRANCISCO: Elvis Presley’s music rights holders have sued Anthropic, accusing the AI company of using 274 copyrighted songs to train its Claude models without permission.
The plaintiffs filed the lawsuit on Friday in the US District Court for the Northern District of California. They are seeking up to $48.6 million in damages.
The case includes a subsidiary of Authentic Brands Group, which acquired rights to Presley’s intellectual property and trademarks in 2013.
Music publishers Raleigh Music Publishing and Abilene Music are among the other plaintiffs. Trusts associated with songwriter Luigi Creatore and the Aberbach family have joined the legal action.
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The lawsuit accuses Anthropic of copying copyrighted compositions without obtaining licenses or paying their owners. According to the plaintiffs, the company stored the material in an internal repository for training future versions of Claude.
The disputed catalogue includes “Can’t Help Falling in Love”, “All Shook Up”, “Don’t Be Cruel”, “A Little Less Conversation” and “Return to Sender”.
The rights holders seek $150,000 for each of the 274 allegedly infringed works. That amounts to $41.1 million, and additional claims raise the total to about $48.6 million.
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Lead attorney Richard Busch accused Anthropic of building its business through widespread copyright infringement. He described the plaintiffs as deeply protective of Presley’s music.
Anthropic rejected the allegations. “We disagree with the claims and intend to defend this case fully,” the company told NBC News. The lawsuit joins other legal disputes over the use of copyrighted music in artificial intelligence training.
Rights holders to 274 Elvis Presley songs have sued Anthropic, alleging it used copyrighted material without authorisation to train Claude AI models and seeking up to $48.6 million.
