The rights holders to a significant portion of Elvis Presley’s music catalog have filed a lawsuit against Anthropic, an artificial intelligence company, alleging that the firm used his songs without authorization to enhance its AI agent, Claude.
The lawsuit, lodged in federal court in San Francisco, targets the partnership that manages 274 of Presley’s iconic tracks, such as “All Shook Up,” “Can’t Help Falling in Love,” “Don’t Be Cruel,” and “Return to Sender.” The plaintiffs assert that Anthropic did not compensate them for using these songs to develop its AI technology.
The legal complaint states, “The defendant has built its entire business model on copyright infringement at an unprecedented scale.” The partnerships claim their collection contains “some of the most groundbreaking, revolutionary, influential, and enduring musical compositions in human history.” According to the music industry publication Billboard, the lawsuit was initiated by Authentic Brands Group, the entity holding the rights to Presley, along with other associated rights holders.
In response to the allegations, an Anthropic spokesperson stated, “We disagree with the claims and intend to defend this case fully.” The plaintiffs’ legal team highlighted that there are at least half a dozen other lawsuits currently in federal court in San Francisco concerning the unauthorized use of music for AI training.
Seeking approximately $50 million in damages, along with court costs and attorney fees, the plaintiffs argue that Anthropic was aware it was misusing copyrighted material yet continued to do so. The lawsuit accuses Anthropic of disregarding the rights of numerous creators and rightsholders, using their works without consent, modifying identifying information from those works, and retaining profits generated from these actions.
The suit alleges that Anthropic has compiled Elvis’s songs into a long-term, comprehensive library intended for indefinite storage, from which selected songs were duplicated to train subsequent versions of Claude. According to the legal complaint, Anthropic’s practices enable users to create derivative works based on the original songs without compensating the copyright owners. The lawsuit further claims that Claude is producing variations that closely resemble the original songs, maintaining similar structures and hooks while merely changing some words, which crosses the line from being merely “inspired by” to reproducing copyrighted material.
The lawsuit argues that such unauthorized usages are undermining the value of these musical creations within a short timeframe, driven solely by profit motives.
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Elvis rights holder sues Anthropic, says songs illegally used to train AI
