The music publishers Sony Music Publishing, Warner Chappell Music Publishing, and 33 other publishers have filed a new lawsuit against the AI company Anthropic. They accuse the corporation of systematically reproducing song lyrics and feeding them into the AI system Claude.
New York, August 31, 2026
35 music publishers, led by Sony Music Publishing and Warner Chappell Music Publishing, have filed a new lawsuit against the AI company Anthropic in New York, accusing the corporation of one of the largest cases of copyright infringement in history.
The lawsuit, filed in late August, is directed against Anthropic, one of the leading providers of AI language models, whose best-known product is the AI system Claude. The plaintiffs accuse the company of copying protected song lyrics on a large scale without a license and using them to train their models. Specifically, according to the plaintiffs' representation, the model is capable of reproducing song lyrics verbatim, including works from the repertoire of the publishers involved. The lawsuit joins a growing number of legal disputes that Anthropic currently faces, while the company is simultaneously preparing a potential initial public offering that, according to industry observers, could rank among the largest in the tech industry.
The complaint speaks of a "one of the largest and most blatant ongoing thefts of intellectual property in history". The music publishers argue that Anthropic has severely infringed the rights of authors and publishers by systematically feeding copyrighted song lyrics into its training data. The AI system Claude reproduces protected texts in full or in nearly identical form in many cases, as soon as users submit corresponding queries. The plaintiffs see this not as an accidental collision but as the foreseeable result of a business model built on unlicensed content.
From the publishers' perspective, the case is comparable to earlier lawsuits against other AI providers that trained their models on copyrighted texts from the internet. The dispute over Anthropic, however, carries particular urgency because the company is considered one of the most profitable players in the highly competitive market for generative AI. Industry observers see the proceedings as a litmus test for how US courts assess the question of whether training large language models on protected works without a license is permissible. If the lawsuit succeeds, it could affect not only Anthropic but the entire generative AI industry.
Anthropic itself has not publicly commented in detail on the specific allegations to date. In comparable cases, the company fundamentally refers to the so-called fair use doctrine of US copyright law, which permits the use of protected works in certain contexts. Music publishers and authors counter this position by arguing that merely replacing individual words or generating slightly modified variants does not constitute a new, independent creation. The model's ability to output protected texts verbatim on request can also hardly be reconciled with the argument of transformative use.
The list of plaintiffs includes, in addition to the two industry giants Sony Music Publishing and Warner Chappell Music Publishing, also smaller independent publishers. A total of 35 publishers have joined the class action. The Universal Music Publishing Group, which had already taken action against other AI providers such as Suno in earlier proceedings, is also reported to be among the supporters of the initiative. The geographic breadth of the plaintiffs underscores the significance of the proceedings for the entire music industry, which has feared for the economic foundation of its repertoire since the rise of generative AI.
For Anthropic, the lawsuit comes at a particularly inopportune time. The company is preparing, by its own account, an initial public offering that could attract investors with a billion-dollar valuation. Ongoing legal disputes are considered a significant risk factor in the capital markets, one that can affect valuation and the willingness of institutional investors to participate. Industry analysts assume that the proceedings will significantly influence the company's future business strategy, for example through higher licensing costs, the conclusion of usage agreements with rights holders, or the development of proprietary filtering mechanisms.
The dispute between creative professionals and AI companies is part of a broader trend that has also affected other industries such as publishing, film, and news media. Authors, journalists, and film studios have filed similar lawsuits against OpenAI, Microsoft, and other providers in recent years. The proceedings are at various stages; some have been settled out of court, while others are being litigated. The new proceedings against Anthropic could help clarify fundamental questions of significance to all of generative AI.
Observers expect the legal dispute to drag on for several years. Both sides are already preparing extensive evidentiary submissions, including technical expert opinions on how training data functions and on the conditions under which an AI model reproduces protected texts. Industry associations on the music publishers' side have announced that they intend to use the lawsuit as a test case to shape future licensing models between creative professionals and AI providers. Regardless of the outcome, the proceedings are likely to have a lasting impact on the debate over the handling of copyrighted content in the era of AI.
Benjamin Mann, co-founder of Anthropic, as well as Dario Amodei, co-founder of the company, have been named in previous correspondence as those responsible. Neither has publicly commented on the lawsuit to date. The plaintiffs' attorneys announced that they would present further details on the allegedly infringing content in the coming weeks. According to sources close to the company, Anthropic has announced a statement for the coming days.
