Sony and Warner Sue Anthropic Over Alleged Copyright Infringement
Several major music publishers, including Sony Music Publishing and Warner Chappell, have filed a lawsuit against artificial intelligence research company Anthropic and its co-founders, Dario Amodei and Benjamin Mann, accusing them of serious copyright and intellectual property infringement.
The joint lawsuit, filed in the US District Court for the Northern District of California, alleges that Anthropic carried out an unprecedented campaign to obtain thousands of copyrighted songs and lyrics illegally through torrents, website scraping and downloads. The major legal action by the music industry was first reported by Music Business Worldwide.
In the lawsuit, the publishers claim that Anthropic used thousands of songs and lyrics without permission to train its popular AI model Claude, which they describe as an outright act of theft.
Facing the allegations, however, Anthropic has said it will strongly defend its position. In an email to technology news outlet TechCrunch, an Anthropic spokesperson said the company disagrees with the publishers' allegations and intends to mount a vigorous legal defense in court.
Not Anthropic's First Copyright Battle
This is not the first intellectual property lawsuit brought against Anthropic. The same lawyers involved in lawsuits filed by Concord Music Group and Universal Music Group, as well as the high-profile Bartz v. Anthropic case concerning authors' rights, are representing Sony and Warner in the new lawsuit.
In the landmark Bartz case, a judge ruled that although copyrighted material may in some circumstances be used for AI training, obtaining such material through piracy or other unlawful means is illegal. Anthropic ultimately agreed to settle that case for $1.5 billion.
Alleged Use of Torrent Networks
The latest lawsuit is broader in scope than Anthropic's previous legal battles. The publishers directly accuse the company of using illegal torrent networks to obtain copies of sheet music containing vast quantities of books, songs and lyrics.
The publishers therefore allege that Anthropic engaged in widespread piracy to acquire copyrighted material for its AI systems.
According to technology analysts, the collective legal action by the music publishers signals a tougher approach toward how data is collected for AI training. The case could potentially create significant challenges for Anthropic's business operations and further shape the legal boundaries surrounding AI companies' use of copyrighted material.
//DBTech/BMT/OR//
