AI • 3 min read
Sony Music Publishing and Warner Chappell accuse Anthropic of scraping copyrighted songs to train Claude and seek damages that could reach billions.
Image: Mashable Sony Music Publishing and Warner Chappell Music are seeking potentially billions of dollars from Anthropic, alleging that the company illegally copied thousands of copyrighted songs to train its Claude AI models.
The publishers filed the case in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, naming Anthropic CEO and co-founder Dario Amodei and co-founder Benjamin Mann as defendants. The allegations are laid out in the federal court complaint, which accuses Anthropic of systematically obtaining copyrighted works instead of relying on properly licensed training data.
“the culprits behind one of the largest and most blatant ongoing thefts of intellectual property in history.”
The publishers describe what they say was a large-scale campaign of “illegally torrenting, scraping, and down copyrighted works.” They claim Anthropic’s conduct generated substantial profits while depriving copyright holders of compensation. Those claims have not been established in court, and the supplied reporting does not include a response from Anthropic.
The damages could reach billions #
Sony and Warner are seeking $150,000 in statutory damages per work, along with $25,000 for each copyright violation. The complaint alleges that thousands of works were copied, putting the publishers' potential compensation in the billions of dollars, depending on which claims survive and how the court calculates eligible infringements.
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The publishers identify well-known song titles that they say were among the works Anthropic took, including “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough,” “All I Want for Christmas is You,” “Eye of the Tiger,” and “Here Comes Santa Claus.” The complaint alleges that identifiable music-publishing catalogs were copied at scale.
The two plaintiffs are described as the second- and third-largest music publishers. Their combined action adds another rights-holder challenge to Anthropic’s existing legal exposure over training data.
| Legal action | Parties and reported stakes | Status described in the sources |
|---|---|---|
| Current complaint | Sony Music Publishing and Warner Chappell; $150,000 per work and $25,000 per violation | Filed in federal court; allegations not yet proven |
| Music publisher case | Universal Music Group, Concord Music Group and ABKCO Music; more than $3 billion sought | Lawsuit filed in 2023 and again earlier this year |
| Book-publisher dispute | Anthropic and book publishers; $1.5 billion settlement | Settlement reached earlier this year |
Anthropic’s earlier $1.5 billion settlement with book publishers is explicitly cited in the new complaint. That case also involved accusations that Anthropic trained its models on works obtained without authorization. The settlement doesn’t resolve the music publishers' claims, but it gives Sony and Warner a prior Anthropic copyright dispute to cite as they argue that the company continued to benefit from unlicensed material.
Music publishers are joining a wider AI copyright fight #
Universal Music Group, Concord Music Group and ABKCO Music previously sued Anthropic over similar alleged conduct. Their latest case seeks more than $3 billion. The case adds litigation from both music publishers and individual rights holders over how AI companies acquire training data.
The legal theory in the Sony and Warner case centers on copying during the training process, but the financial claims are tied to each work and each alleged violation. A ruling against Anthropic would not automatically establish one flat payment for all music, and the final exposure could depend on the number of works, the nature of the alleged copies and the damages framework the court applies.
The complaint also raises a question for model developers: whether large-scale access to copyrighted catalogs must be licensed before those works can be used in training, rather than treated as freely obtainable material because they can be found online. The supplied materials do not establish whether Anthropic licensed any of the songs at issue, whether the company retained copies in a particular training dataset or how Claude reproduced or referenced the works.
The confirmed development is the filing itself and the publishers' demand for damages that could reach billions—not a court finding that Anthropic infringed the listed songs.
Frequently asked questions #
Why are Sony and Warner suing Anthropic?+ #
They allege Anthropic illegally torrented, scraped and downloaded copyrighted songs at scale to train its Claude AI models.
How much money are Sony and Warner seeking?+ #
The publishers seek $150,000 per copyrighted work and $25,000 per alleged violation. Because they allege thousands of works were copied, the total could reach billions.
Has a court found Anthropic liable?+ #
No. The case contains allegations by Sony Music Publishing and Warner Chappell, and the supplied reporting does not include a ruling or an Anthropic response.
Has Anthropic faced similar copyright claims before?+ #
Yes. Anthropic reached a $1.5 billion settlement with book publishers, while Universal Music Group, Concord Music Group and ABKCO Music have also pursued copyright lawsuits.
Ava Chen AI Editor
Ava covers the rapidly evolving world of artificial intelligence, from foundational models and research labs to the real-world economics of intelligence. With a background in computational linguistics, she cuts through the hype to find out what actually works. She firmly believes that benchmarks are just marketing until reproduced in the wild.