Authentic Brands Group and co-plaintiffs claim Claude was trained on the King’s catalog without permission; Anthropic says it disagrees and will defend the case
The owners of Elvis Presley’s music catalog have sued Anthropic, alleging the AI company trained its Claude models on 274 of the singer’s songs without permission or payment and seeking more than $41 million in damages.
The lawsuit was filed Friday in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California by a subsidiary of Authentic Brands Group—the firm that controls much of Presley’s intellectual property—along with other publishers, trusts, and rights holders. It seeks statutory damages of up to $150,000 per song, or roughly $41.1 million, for willful copyright infringement, plus an injunction to stop further use and the destruction of unauthorized copies.
The complaint identifies works ranging from major hits such as “Can’t Help Falling in Love,” “Don’t Be Cruel,” “All Shook Up,” and “A Little Less Conversation” to lesser-known tracks. Plaintiffs allege Anthropic collected the lyrics from internet sources, stored them in a permanent internal library, and used them to train successive versions of Claude. They further claim the model continues to generate near-replicas and unauthorized derivative versions even after the company implemented guardrails following earlier lawsuits. When prompted to recreate specific songs “for a modern audience,” Claude reportedly produced outputs that retained the original structure, hooks, and overall form, which the suit describes as crossing from inspiration into reproduction of the copyrighted material.
“The Elvis Plaintiffs bring this action to enforce these exclusive rights against the defendant that has built its entire business model based on copyright infringement at a scale never seen before,” lead attorney Richard Busch said in a statement. “The Elvis Plaintiffs are deeply protective of these iconic songs.”
An Anthropic spokesperson responded: “We disagree with the claims and intend to defend this case fully.”
The case is among the first high-profile copyright actions brought by the rights holders of a single artist’s catalog against an AI developer. It joins a growing docket of suits against Anthropic and other AI companies filed by music publishers, record labels, and the RIAA over the use of copyrighted material in training data. Outcomes in these cases could shape how courts treat AI training on existing creative works and whether companies must obtain licenses.
First reported by Billboard, the filing has drawn coverage across music and technology outlets highlighting both the cultural weight of Presley’s catalog and the broader legal questions surrounding AI development.
The complaint identifies works ranging from major hits such as “Can’t Help Falling in Love,” “Don’t Be Cruel,” “All Shook Up,” and “A Little Less Conversation” to lesser-known tracks. Plaintiffs allege Anthropic collected the lyrics from internet sources, stored them in a permanent internal library, and used them to train successive versions of Claude. They further claim the model continues to generate near-replicas and unauthorized derivative versions even after the company implemented guardrails following earlier lawsuits. When prompted to recreate specific songs “for a modern audience,” Claude reportedly produced outputs that retained the original structure, hooks, and overall form, which the suit describes as crossing from inspiration into reproduction of the copyrighted material.
An Anthropic spokesperson responded: “We disagree with the claims and intend to defend this case fully.”
The case is among the first high-profile copyright actions brought by the rights holders of a single artist’s catalog against an AI developer. It joins a growing docket of suits against Anthropic and other AI companies filed by music publishers, record labels, and the RIAA over the use of copyrighted material in training data. Outcomes in these cases could shape how courts treat AI training on existing creative works and whether companies must obtain licenses.
First reported by Billboard, the filing has drawn coverage across music and technology outlets highlighting both the cultural weight of Presley’s catalog and the broader legal questions surrounding AI development.