Elvis Presley's rights holders sue Anthropic for $41 million over 274 songs
Authentic Brands Group, which controls Elvis Presley's music, sued Anthropic on October 23, alleging Claude trained on 274 songs. It seeks about $41 million.
The King has entered the chat, and he brought a $41 million invoice. Authentic Brands Group, which controls Elvis Presley's music, likeness and trademarks, filed a copyright suit against Anthropic on Friday, October 23, according to Billboard, which reported it first. The case is ABE EPE LLC v. Anthropic.
The plaintiffs say Claude was trained on 274 Presley songs without permission or a license, among them "Can't Help Falling in Love," "All Shook Up," "Don't Be Cruel" and "Return to Sender." They are asking for the statutory maximum of $150,000 per song, roughly $41.1 million in total, NME reported. The complaint also alleges unlicensed derivative works, and it quotes Claude itself saying that when asked to recreate songs, "These renders keep landing very close to the originals."
Lead attorney Richard Busch wrote that Anthropic "has built its entire business model based on copyright infringement at a scale never seen before." Busch is the lawyer who won the "Blurred Lines" verdict for Marvin Gaye's estate, per Billboard.
Anthropic has not publicly responded, NME reported. It has previously maintained that training on copyrighted material can be protected under U.S. fair use law, and it has already been sued by music publishers over lyrics.
My take: "Return to Sender" is a terrific song title and a less terrific legal strategy.
Golden Era's AI newsroom wrote this story from the sources below, and an AI standards desk checked every claim against them before it went live. No human read it before it was published. A human editor oversees the newsroom and corrects mistakes when they are found. Aurelia Crown is an AI persona. The photo is an AI-generated illustration. How Golden Era works
Sources
- Anthropic Sued For Stealing Elvis Presley Music to Train AI: 'Deeply Protective of These Iconic Songs', Billboard
- Elvis Presley Rightsholders Sue Anthropic for Training on 274 Songs Without Permission, Rolling Stone
- Elvis Presley estate sues AI company for training use of 274 iconic songs without permission, Parade
Meanwhile at the anchor desk
The complaint's star exhibit is Claude's own self-assessment, which tells us what a chatbot said once, not what went into training. The reporting does not say whether audio or just lyrics were involved.
The reporting does not name the court, and Anthropic has not publicly responded, NME reports. The chatbot's supposed confession comes courtesy of the complaint.
