Sony Music and Warner Chappell sue Anthropic over massive copyright infringement claims

In federal court in the Northern District of California, Sony Music and Warner Chappell have brought a civil action against Anthropic, claiming the AI developer incorporated tens of thousands of copyrighted songs and texts into its training data. The plaintiffs request damages of up to $150,000 per work and $25,000 for each occurrence of stripped copyright metadata, which could total several billion dollars if the maximum awards are applied.

The complaint also targets Anthropic’s co-founders Dario Amodei and Benjamin Mann, accusing Mann of using BitTorrent to obtain over five million pirated books and alleging that company staff downloaded at least two million additional titles from a site called Pirate Library Mirror. Specific tracks cited include “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough,” “Livin’ On a Prayer,” “September,” “Hallelujah,” and “Paper Rings.” This filing adds to a string of recent litigation against Anthropic, such as a $1.5 billion settlement with the publishing industry and suits from Universal Music Group, Concord, ABKCO, BMG and Round Hill Music. Anthropic has not responded to requests for comment.