Universal Music Group is taking Anthropic to court again.

Lawsuit Explained

Universal Music Group is suing artificial intelligence (AI) firm Anthropic, alleging the company built its AI model Claude using “pirate libraries” of music, Billboard reported. The legal action comes amid judicial warnings that AI companies may be held accountable if their models are trained on data obtained unlawfully. Universal Music Group is arguing that Anthropic’s “multibillion-dollar business empire” has in fact been “built on piracy” in a lawsuit filed Jan. 28, per the outlet.

Universal Music Group and other music publishers including Concord Music Group, and ABKCO, had previously filed a lawsuit against Anthropic over copyright claims in 2023, Billboard noted. UMG then attempted to update the lawsuit with new information, as a case against Anthropic by book authors last year had resulted in a judge ruling that the training materials must be “legally” acquired or the company would face “enormous infringement damages,” according to the outlet.

However, the judge in UMG’s case did not permit this new information for procedural reasons. As such, the music publisher and others filed the new lawsuit, claiming it is “distinct and separate” and focuses on claims of piracy, per Billboard. The lawsuit alleges that Anthropic illegally downloaded books of sheet music for “hundreds or thousands” of songs owned by the publishers from file-sharing sites. The publishers claim the sheet music was then used to train Anthropic’s Claude AI to generate new song lyrics. Songs pulled reportedly include Elton John’s “Bennie and the Jets,” Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline,” the Rolling Stones’ “Wild Horses,” Creedance Clearwater Revival’s “Have You Ever Seen The Rain,” Maroon Five’s “She Will Be Loved,” and Katy Perry’s “California Gurls,” among others, per the outlet.

Universal Music Group alleges the second lawsuit was necessary as a result of Anthropic’s “persistent and brazen infringement,” according to a statement to Billboard.

“Publishers recognize the great potential of ethical AI as a powerful tool for the future,” lawyers for UMG and other publishers said in the lawsuit, per the outlet. “However, it remains crucial that AI technology be developed and employed ethically and responsibly, in a manner that protects the rights of publishers and songwriters, their livelihoods, and the creative ecosystem as a whole. Doing so will ensure that AI enhances — rather than imperils — human creativity.”

The publishers’ lawyers further added, according to Billboard:

“Publishers recently discovered that defendants downloaded by torrenting an enormous number of unauthorized copies of publishers’ works from illegal shadow libraries to avoid paying for those works. To the extent defendants now try to absolve themselves of liability for this blatant theft by claiming that Anthropic later used some subset of these stolen works for AI training, any such claimed use is irrelevant.”

What UMG Is Seeking

Universal Music Group is seeking damages of more than $3 billion for infringement of over 20,000 songs, believing this could be one of the largest, if not the single-largest non-class action copyright cases in the nation’s history, lawyers stated in the lawsuit, Billboard reported.