Tech & AI
Anthropic hit by two new music copyright suits over Elvis Presley songs and 853 sets of lyrics, weeks before its planned IPO
Rights owners of Elvis Presley's catalogue and publisher Reservoir together seek statutory damages that could reach about $190 million if every claim succeeded at the maximum.
HedgeWeekly Tech & AI Desk ·
Anthropic, the developer of the Claude AI models, has been sued by the owners of Elvis Presley's music, The Hollywood Reporter said in a report published on October 25. Authentic Brands Group, which controls Presley's rights, filed the complaint on Friday, October 23, together with other companies that hold rights to his catalogue. The suit says Anthropic used 274 Presley songs, including "Can't Help Falling in Love" and "Don't Be Cruel", to train its models without permission. It also alleges that Claude produced infringing material and kept doing so after Anthropic added safeguards. Anthropic did not respond to the publication's request for comment.
The plaintiffs seek $150,000 per song, according to Rolling Stone as cited by The Hollywood Reporter. That is the top level of statutory damages under US law, meaning a fixed amount per work set by a court rather than proven losses. For 274 songs, it would come to about $41 million. Two days earlier, on October 21, music publisher Reservoir sued Anthropic in the US District Court for the Northern District of California. Its complaint covers the lyrics of 853 compositions, among them Johnny Cash's "Ring of Fire" and Madonna's "Papa Don't Preach". It seeks up to about $151.4 million, combining claims for infringement, removal of copyright information and getting around access controls. Reservoir filed a separate suit against AI music company Suno the same day.
Reservoir also asks the court to order the destruction of copies of its works, including copies held in training datasets and model weights. Model weights are the learned numbers that make up a trained AI model. Richard Busch is lead lawyer on both new complaints. Anthropic has said it disagrees with the Reservoir allegations and will defend the case, Billboard reported. In an older lyrics case brought by Universal Music Group, Concord and ABKCO, a federal judge in San Jose heard arguments on fair use on October 21. Fair use is the legal defence that allows some unlicensed use of copyrighted work. The judge had not ruled as of October 22. One tracker counts 157 copyright suits against AI companies so far.
Why it matters: Bloomberg reported on October 1 that Anthropic was aiming to go public as soon as mid-November. Litigation will therefore be one of the risks investors weigh in its prospectus. The amounts claimed are ceilings that plaintiffs are asking for. No court has found infringement, and statutory awards are often far lower. The bigger risk is that the fair-use ruling in the San Jose lyrics case could set a pattern for licensing costs across the AI industry. Requests to destroy model weights also matter, because they target the core asset of AI developers. Investors should watch for that ruling and for how Anthropic's offering documents describe its legal exposure.