Music publishers sue Anthropic over copyright theft

Sony and Warner have sued Anthropic, accusing the AI company of illegally using copyrighted music to train its Claude models.

The lawsuit filed in Northern California also named Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and co-founder Benjamin Mann as defendants.

The publishers allege Anthropic downloaded, scraped, and copied tens of thousands of musical compositions without permission.

They are seeking hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages for each work they say the company infringed.

The case could become a major legal battle over how AI companies use copyrighted material. Music rights can involve separate owners for lyrics, compositions, and recordings, making disputes especially complex.

Anthropic rejected the allegations and said it plans to defend itself in court.