Financial Liability and Penalties

The plaintiffs are seeking substantial monetary damages for tens of thousands of copyrighted works. The filing requests up to $150,000 per work, alongside an additional $25,000 for every instance where identifiable copyright data was removed. If the court awards these maximum amounts, the total financial liability for Anthropic could escalate into several billion dollars.

Sony Music Publishing and Warner Chappell have filed suit against Anthropic in the US District Court for the Northern District of California seeking damages for “tens of thousands” copyrighted works. The companies are asking for up to $150,000 per work, plus up to $25,000 for each instance when identifiable copyright data was stripped.

In total, the damages could amount to several billion dollars if a court finds in Sony and Warner’s favor and awards the maximum amount. This is just the latest high-profile suit against Anthropic, which recently settled a suit brought by the publishing industry for $1.5 billion.

It’s also faced multiple lawsuits from Universal Music Group, Concord, and ABKCO, plus separate suits from BMG and Round Hill Music.

Methods of Data Acquisition

The complaint details a variety of illegal acquisition methods used to build training sets. It alleges that co-founder Benjamin Mann utilized BitTorrent to download more than five million pirated books, while other employees secured at least two million additional works from Pirate Library Mirror. Furthermore, the suit claims Anthropic scraped lyrics from LyricFind and MusixMatch, platforms that pay for licensed content.

In addition to suing Anthropic as an entity, the complaint names cofounders Dario Amodei and Benjamin Mann as individual defendants. The suit alleges that Mann used BitTorrent to download over five million pirated books, and that employees downloaded at least two million more from Pirate Library Mirror.

It also claims that Anthropic scraped lyrics from sites like MusixMatch and LyricFind, which paid to license content from the labels. According to the filing: > Plaintiff Music Publishers, a group of the world’s leading music publishers, bring this action to hold accountable the culprits behind one of the largest and most blatant ongoing thefts of intellectual property in history.

Defendants Anthropic and its founders Dario Amodei and Benjamin Mann have conducted a brazen campaign of illegally torrenting, scraping, and downloading copyrighted works on a massive scale in order to develop, operate, and reap enormous profits from Anthropic’s “Claude” series of artificial intelligence (“AI”) models.

Specific Intellectual Property Claims

Identifying specific training data, the publishers point to several high-profile songs used without authorization. Notable examples cited in the filing include Taylor Swift's "Paper Rings," Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah," and Bon Jovi's "Livin' On a Prayer." Other mentioned works include Earth, Wind & Fire's "September" and the collaboration between Tammi Terrell and Marvin Gaye, "Ain't No Mountain High Enough."

Specific songs named as being found in Anthropic’s training data include Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell’s “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough,” Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ on a Prayer,” Earth, Wind & Fire’s “September,” Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah,” and Taylor Swift’s “Paper Rings.” Anthropic did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Update August 30th: Clarification has been added that Sony Music Publishing specifically filed suit, not to be confused with Sony Music Entertainment.

The companies call it ‘one of the largest and most blatant ongoing thefts of intellectual property in history.’ Sony Music Publishing and Warner Chappell have filed suit against Anthropic in the US District Court for the Northern District of California seeking damages for “tens of thousands” copyrighted works. Plaintiff Music Publishers, a group of the world’s leading music publishers, bring this action to hold accountable the culprits behind one of the largest and most blatant ongoing thefts of intellectual property in history.

Broader Legal Context

This litigation adds to a growing list of legal challenges for Anthropic. The company recently reached a $1.5 billion settlement with the publishing industry and faces ongoing suits from Concord, ABKCO, and Universal Music Group, as well as Round Hill Music and BMG. Notably, this current action names co-founders Dario Amodei and Benjamin Mann as individual defendants.