Publishers Say Anthropic's Pirate Library Fueled Music Suit

Sony Music Publishing and Warner Chappell allege Anthropic downloaded millions of pirated works and copied tens of thousands of songs to train Claude.

Sony Music Publishing and Warner Chappell Music have jointly sued Anthropic, alleging the company unlawfully copied tens of thousands of copyrighted songs to train and run its Claude AI models. According to The Guardian, the suit was filed on 28 August in California and names Anthropic alongside chief executive Dario Amodei and co-founder Benjamin Mann as individual defendants. Outlook Business reports the publishers are seeking statutory damages of up to $150,000 per wilfully infringed work plus $25,000 for each removal of copyright management information, meaning total exposure could run into the billions. The publishers call it one of the largest and most blatant ongoing thefts of intellectual property in history.

The most striking allegation, reported by The Guardian, is that Mann and Anthropic downloaded at least seven million copies of books from pirate websites, including lyrics and sheet music for songs like Bon Jovi's Livin' on a Prayer and Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah. The Guardian says the figures come from the authors' copyright case that Anthropic settled for $1.5bn. The publishers also allege songs were scraped from legal lyric sites like Musixmatch and LyricFind and from datasets such as Common Crawl, and that identifying information was stripped from works, denying rights holders valuable attribution.

The complaint reads like a jukebox of classics. According to GIGAZINE, the allegedly infringed works include Ain't No Mountain High Enough, Mariah Carey's All I Want for Christmas Is You, Survivor's Eye of the Tiger, Gene Autry's Here Comes Santa Claus and Taylor Swift's Paper Rings. Channelnews reports publishers claim Claude can reproduce some lyrics verbatim when prompted and generate new competing lyrics.

Anthropic is not conceding anything. A spokesperson told The Guardian: 'We disagree with the publishers' claims and we intend to defend ourselves robustly in court.' Channelnews quotes the company arguing that training generative AI models is transformative fair use, and describing the complaint as the third lawsuit from the same lawyers recycling allegations already before the courts. Channelnews also notes that in the authors' case a judge found training on copyrighted books could qualify as fair use, but acquiring those works through piracy was not protected. Anthropic is reportedly preparing for a listing that could value it at $2tn.

This is far from Anthropic's only music fight. According to GIGAZINE, the conflict began in 2023 when Universal Music Publishing Group, Concord and ABKCO sued over roughly 500 songs; a second suit filed in January 2026 covers more than 20,000 works and seeks over $3 billion. GIGAZINE adds that BMG and Round Hill Music have filed separate cases, meaning Anthropic now faces legal battles with every major music label. Outlook Business reports the new complaint explicitly cites the $1.5 billion authors' settlement and alleges the company kept using copyrighted material, calling it 'just the cost of doing business.'

The publishers are asking for a jury trial, an order preventing Anthropic from using their works, destruction of infringing copies, and a full account of the material used to train Claude, according to Outlook Business and Channelnews. Channelnews reports statutory damages could reach billions if maximum awards apply across tens of thousands of works. Composer and copyright campaigner Ed Newton-Rex told The Guardian he was not surprised rights holders were defending themselves against a company with a history of training on huge libraries. With Suno's recent loss to Germany's GEMA over Daddy Cool, as GIGAZINE notes, the litigation climate for AI music is hardening fast.