Music publishers Sony Music Publishing and Warner Chappell Music have filed a sweeping lawsuit against Anthropic. The rights holders accuse the artificial intelligence developer of systematically infringing copyrights in the training of the Claude model. The lawsuit has been filed in the federal court of the Northern District of California. Named as defendants, alongside the company itself, are its CEO Dario Amodei and co-founder Benjamin Mann. The publishers are seeking damages of up to $150,000 for each copyrighted musical work used without authorization.
According to the plaintiffs, Anthropic uploaded and used tens of thousands of copyright-protected compositions. Among them were well-known songs including Ain't No Mountain High Enough, Livin' on a Prayer, and Hallelujah. The publishers also allege that the company made use of pirated copies of books and other materials. The developers reportedly extracted song lyrics from the licensed platforms Musixmatch and LyricFind. The rights holders describe these actions as one of the largest thefts of intellectual property in history.
The financial claims of the plaintiffs could reach several billion dollars. In addition to the primary damages, Sony and Warner are seeking up to $25,000 for each instance of copyright management information removal. The publishers are insisting on a jury trial. An Anthropic spokesperson, in a comment to TechCrunch, stated that the company disagrees with the claims. Anthropic intends to mount a vigorous defense in court and contest all charges brought against it.
This lawsuit represents yet another episode in an ongoing conflict between Anthropic and rights holders. In January 2026, Universal Music Group, Concord, and ABKCO filed a separate $3 billion lawsuit, accusing Claude of infringing copyrights on more than 20,000 musical works. Earlier still, the developer faced claims from authors and publishers over its use of pirated book copies. In 2025, Anthropic agreed to pay $1.5 billion to settle that case.