Anthropic sued by Sony Music and Warner Chappell over unauthorized use of copyrighted songs in AI training

Sony Music Publishing and Warner Chappell Music have sued Anthropic, its CEO Dario Amodei, and co-founder Benjamin Mann in California federal court, alleging the unauthorized use of over 20,000 copyrighted songs to train its Claude chatbot. The publishers claim Anthropic illegally downloaded sheet music and lyrics via BitTorrent from piracy sites. Seeking billions in damages, the plaintiffs cite a prior $1.5 billion settlement precedent. Anthropic vows to defend itself, arguing model training is fair use.

Anthropic copyright lawsuit

• ▪The lawsuit, filed as Case No. 5:26-cv-09217, accuses Anthropic of using unlicensed copyrighted song compositions, sheet music, and lyrics to train its Claude chatbot
• ▪The complaint filed by Sony Music Publishing and Warner Chappell Music describes Anthropic's data acquisition practices as one of the largest and most blatant ongoing thefts of intellectual property in history
• ▪Sony Music Publishing and Warner Chappell Music filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Anthropic, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, and Anthropic co-founder Benjamin Mann in the US District Court for the Northern District of California on Friday, August 28, 2026

BitTorrent piracy allegations

• ▪The publishers allege Anthropic obtained copyrighted materials by downloading approximately 5 million books from Library Genesis in June 2021 and 2 million books from Pirate Library Mirror in July 2022 using BitTorrent
• ▪The lawsuit specifically accuses Anthropic co-founder Benjamin Mann of using BitTorrent to obtain pirated books, while Anthropic employees allegedly downloaded the remaining files
• ▪The publishers allege Anthropic scraped copyrighted lyrics from Musixmatch and LyricFind, platforms that pay licensing fees to music labels to display lyrics

Infringed song catalog

• ▪The publishers contend that Anthropic's Claude chatbot generates competing AI-created song lyrics that undermine the market for original compositions
• ▪The lawsuit alleges Anthropic pirated over 20,000 songs to train Claude, including Mariah Carey's 'All I Want for Christmas is You' and Taylor Swift's 'Paper Rings.'
• ▪Other copyrighted songs cited in the complaint include Leonard Cohen's 'Hallelujah,' Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell's 'Ain't No Mountain High Enough,' Bon Jovi's 'Livin' on a Prayer,' and Earth, Wind & Fire's 'September.'

Statutory damages sought

• ▪Sony Music Publishing and Warner Chappell Music are seeking statutory damages of up to $150,000 per knowingly infringed work and $25,000 per Digital Millennium Copyright Act violation
• ▪The total damages sought by the publishers could reach billions of dollars, and the plaintiffs are not required to prove actual financial loss to seek statutory damages for commercial recordings

Fair use defense

• ▪Anthropic characterized the lawsuit as the third legal action from the same lawyers recycling allegations that are already before the courts
• ▪Anthropic stated that it disagrees with the publishers' claims, intends to robustly defend itself in court, and maintains that AI model training constitutes transformative fair use

Prior settlement precedent

• ▪Anthropic has also faced copyright infringement claims from other major music rights holders, including Universal Music Group, Concord, BMG, and Round Hill Music
• ▪Anthropic previously agreed to a $1.5 billion court settlement in a separate lawsuit brought by authors over the unauthorized downloading of books from pirated sources to train AI models
• ▪In the prior authors' case, the presiding judge ruled that while training AI on copyrighted works may qualify as fair use, downloading those works from pirated sources is illegal

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