Sony Music and Warner Sue Anthropic for Copyright Infringement, Seeking $150,000 Per Song

Sony Music Publishing and Warner Chappell Music, a unit of Warner Music Group, sued AI startup Anthropic in federal court in Northern California on Friday.

The lawsuit also names co-founders Dario Amodei and Benjamin Mann as defendants.

The publishers allege Anthropic "unlawfully used BitTorrent, scraping, and downloading" of copyrighted songs to train its Claude AI model. Cited works include "Eye of the Tiger," Marvin Gaye's "Ain't No Mountain High Enough," and Taylor Swift's "Paper Rings."

Piracy Allegations Tied to Earlier Book Case Ruling

The lawsuit cites a June 2025 court ruling that found Anthropic downloaded over 7 million pirated books from Library Genesis and Pirate Library Mirror. Although the judge ruled Anthropic's use of copyrighted books to train its AI model constituted fair use, the acquisition of pirated copies remained contentious and was later resolved through a $1.5 billion settlement.

The publishers claim Claude can reproduce copyrighted lyrics in responses, potentially allowing the AI to substitute for licensed lyric services and undermine the market for human-created music.

Anthropic did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Not Anthropic's First Music Copyright Battle

Anthropic has previously faced music copyright scrutiny. Another lawsuit filed in 2023 by Universal Music Group, Concord Music Group, and ABKCO has secured court-approved "guardrails" requiring Anthropic to prevent Claude from reproducing copyrighted lyrics without authorization in its outputs.

Sony Music Publishing is a subsidiary of Sony Group Corporation. The companies are seeking a jury trial and up to $150,000 in statutory damages per infringed work.

Anthropic has faced multiple copyright lawsuits amid broader AI industry litigation over training data sources.

Recently, the company reported preliminary second-quarter revenue exceeding $11.5 billion, up more than 14-fold year-over-year. It also reported its first positive adjusted operating income, ahead of a potential initial public offering.