Elvis Presley rightsholders sue AI company Anthropic over alleged copyright infringement of 274 songs
Elvis Presley plays guitar in a scene from the documentary film Elvis: That’s the Way It Is. CREDIT: Getty Images
The owners of Elvis Presley's music have sued AI company Anthropic. They accuse the company of using 274 of his songs to train its AI models without permission.
The lawsuit was filed on Friday (October 23) by a company owned by Authentic Brands Group. Authentic Brands Group controls many of Presley's intellectual property rights, including the rights to his name, image and likeness. Other companies that own rights to his music have also joined the case.
According to Billboard, the people bringing the lawsuit say Anthropic, the company behind the AI chatbot Claude, broke copyright rules covering 274 songs linked to Presley. These include some of his best-known hits, such as ‘Can’t Help Falling In Love’, ‘All Shook Up’, ‘Don’t Be Cruel’, ‘A Little Less Conversation’, ‘Return To Sender’ and ‘(You’re The) Devil In Disguise’.
The lawsuit says Anthropic used copyrighted music and lyrics to train its AI models without asking permission or paying the people who own the rights. It also claims that the technology can create unauthorised versions of songs that already exist.
Anthropic has not made a public statement about this lawsuit. However, the company has previously argued that using copyrighted material to train AI models may be allowed under a US legal rule called fair use.
Richard Busch, the lead lawyer for the people bringing the lawsuit, said: “The Elvis Plaintiffs bring this action to enforce these exclusive rights against the defendant that has built its entire business model based on copyright infringement at a scale never seen before.”
The lawsuit also claims that Claude has continued to produce copyrighted material even after Anthropic added safety measures meant to stop the chatbot from generating lyrics from existing songs.
According to the court filing, when Claude was asked to recreate songs “for a modern audience”, it produced material that closely resembled the original songs.
The people bringing the lawsuit are asking for damages of up to $150,000 (£112,000) for each of the 274 songs. This could add up to about $41.1 million (£31 million).
Busch previously represented Marvin Gaye's estate in a major copyright case against Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams over their 2013 hit ‘Blurred Lines’. The case ended with a ruling that the song had copied Gaye's 1977 track ‘Got To Give It Up’.
In October 2023, Universal Music Publishing Group, Concord Music Group and ABKCO sued Anthropic. They claimed that Claude had reproduced copyrighted lyrics without permission. They gave examples involving songs by Katy Perry, Gloria Gaynor and The Rolling Stones.
In August, Sony Music Publishing and Warner Chappell also sued Anthropic. They accused the company of using copyrighted lyrics and sheet music by artists including The Beatles, Taylor Swift and Michael Jackson to train Claude.
In another case, Jason Isbell and several other musicians sued AI music generator Suno in September. They claimed that the tool allowed users to copy their identities and musical styles without permission.
In the UK, the music industry has also continued to call for stronger copyright protection as AI develops. Artists including Paul McCartney, Elton John and Dua Lipa have called for stronger safeguards to stop their work from being used without permission.