The owners of Elvis Presley's music have sued Anthropic, alleging the AI company trained its models on 274 Elvis songs without permission. The complaint, filed on October 23rd, seeks more than $41 million in compensation, according to reports from The New York Times and Engadget.
The case is the latest in a growing wave of copyright lawsuits against AI developers over training data. What makes this one stand out is its focus on a single artist who died nearly 50 years ago, a sign of how costly alleged musical plagiarism can become for AI companies.
Who Is Suing Anthropic and Why
The plaintiffs include Authentic Brands Group, Raleigh Music Publishing, multiple trusts and at least one individual with stakes in Elvis Presley's back catalog. They accuse Anthropic of bypassing DRM protections and removing or altering copyright management information from 247 songs, according to the lawsuit.
Among the tracks named are hits like Don't Be Cruel, Can't Help Falling in Love and A Little Less Conversation. The complaint notes that Elvis sold over a billion records and describes his works as some of the most valuable in the world.
"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 wrote.
Anthropic's Response and the Wider Legal Battle
Anthropic said in a brief statement to the NYT that it disagrees with the claims and intends to defend itself in the case. The company has previously argued that training its AI models on copyrighted music constitutes fair use.
This is not Anthropic's first copyright fight over music. Sony and Warner recently sued the company for a "blatant violation" of copyright law involving thousands of works, while Universal Music and Concord Music Group filed a similar claim over the alleged downloading and training on 20,000 copyrighted songs. Each of those lawsuits is claiming damages in the billions of dollars.
