Amodei, Mann Named Personally in Anthropic Suit

Music Business Worldwide reports the new Sony/Warner Chappell copyright suit against Anthropic.

Music Business Worldwide reports that Sony Music Publishing and Warner Chappell Music filed their copyright complaint against Anthropic on Friday, August 28, in the US District Court for the Northern District of California — and that the filing goes beyond the company itself. It names Anthropic co-founder and CEO Dario Amodei and co-founder Benjamin Mann as individual defendants.

According to Music Business Worldwide, the complaint alleges that in June 2021 Mann used BitTorrent to download at least five million pirated books from Library Genesis, and that Anthropic employees torrented at least two million more from Pirate Library Mirror in July 2022 — figures drawn from findings in the authors' case Bartz v. Anthropic, where a judge described the conduct as "straightforward piracy but at massive scale." The filing cites unsealed internal material, including Mann calling LibGen "sketchy AF" and Anthropic's own Archive Team describing it as a "blatant violation of copyright." The suit brings four counts, including direct and contributory infringement by torrenting against all three defendants, plus removal of copyright management information against Anthropic alone.

Music Business Worldwide reports Sony and Warner Chappell are seeking statutory damages of up to $150,000 per work willfully infringed, plus up to $25,000 for each alleged removal of copyright management information. The complaint identifies "tens of thousands" of allegedly infringed compositions — a characterization that, per MBW, would place Anthropic's theoretical statutory exposure in the multi-billion-dollar range. Named songs include "Ain't No Mountain High Enough," "All I Want for Christmas is You," "Eye of the Tiger," "Livin' On a Prayer," "September," "Hallelujah," "Uptown Funk," and Taylor Swift's "Paper Rings." The Verge likewise reports total damages could amount to several billion dollars if courts award the maximum.

This filing joins a crowded docket: Music Business Worldwide notes Universal Music Publishing Group, Concord, and ABKCO first sued in Nashville in October 2023, filed a second California suit in January 2026 covering more than 20,000 works and seeking over $3 billion, with BMG filing in March 2026 and Round Hill Music on August 17. The complaint leans on Anthropic's $1.5 billion September 2025 settlement with book authors, arguing it was "just the cost of doing business" for a company the filing attributes a $2 trillion valuation to, citing an August 2026 Forbes report. The publishers demand a jury trial, destruction of infringing copies, and an account of Claude's training data; the suit is represented by Oppenheim + Zebrak and Pryor Cashman, and per The Verge, Anthropic did not immediately respond to a request for comment.