Major music publishers accuse Anthropic of illegally downloading and using tens of thousands of copyrighted musical compositions to train Claude.
Sony Music, Warner Music, and other publishers have sued Anthropic in federal court in Northern California. According to the complaint, CEO Dario Amodei and co-founder Benjamin Mann are named as individual defendants for their alleged role in directing and overseeing the torrenting of copyrighted files.
"Dr. Amodei expressly directed, approved, controlled, and intentionally induced these infringements by Mr. Mann and other Anthropic employees," the 48-page complaint states. The plaintiffs call it "one of the largest and most blatant ongoing thefts of intellectual property in history."
The complaint focuses on musical compositions, mostly song lyrics, plus sheet music and derivative works. The plaintiffs are seeking up to $150,000 per infringed work and up to $25,000 per violation for unlawful removal of copyright management information, including copyright notices and other identifying information.
Anthropic has already lost this fight once
