The Ghost of Elvis Presley Is Coming for Anthropic to the Tune of $41 Million
The estate of Elvis Presley is asking Anthropic to pay $150,000 for each of 274 copyrighted works named in its complaint. The songs include ‘All Shook Up’ and ‘Can’t Help Falling in Love.’
BY CHLOE AIELLO, REPORTER @CHLOBO_ILO
Elvis Presley in 1968. Photo: Getty Images
The estate of Elvis Presley, known as the King of Rock 'n' Roll, is taking Anthropic to court.
The estate of Elvis Presley has filed a $41 million lawsuit accusing Anthropic of using hundreds of his songs without permission. The lawsuit was filed shortly before the major AI company submitted its S-1 documents to the Securities and Exchange Commission as part of its plan to sell shares to the public for the first time. It is the latest copyright lawsuit against a major AI company. But this case is among the first of its kind to be brought by an artist's estate.
“Although Anthropic calls itself a ‘public benefit corporation,’ its technology and business depend on making copies of copyrighted material without permission, including copies stored on servers,” the lawsuit claims. “Anthropic has built its entire business model on infringing copyrights at an unfathomable scale.”
The lawsuit was filed Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. It claims that Anthropic's Claude AI model was trained on 274 named musical works and has produced results that infringe on them. These works include “All Shook Up” and “Can't Help Falling in Love.” The people bringing the case are seeking $41.1 million in damages, or $150,000 for each work. The complaint says Anthropic copied copyrighted material to train its AI models, removed information showing who owned the copyrights, trained its models to ignore that information, and took steps to hide the alleged infringement.
“We disagree with the claims and intend to defend this case fully,” an Anthropic spokesperson said in a statement.
The lawsuit comes as Anthropic prepares to become a publicly traded company. Its S-1 filing gives an unusually detailed look at the company's finances. Anthropic earned $16.3 billion in revenue during the first half of 2026, but reported much larger net losses of $80.7 billion over the same period. The company did briefly make an operating profit of $974 million on $11.6 billion in revenue in the second quarter of this year.
This is not the first lawsuit accusing Anthropic and other major AI companies of training their systems on copyrighted music. Just last week, music publisher and record label group Reservoir sued Anthropic. The company says Anthropic trained its AI on and reproduced 853 musical works by artists including Joni Mitchell, Johnny Cash, and Madonna, Billboard reported. Universal Music Group (UMG) sued Anthropic for $3 billion in January. Last week, Anthropic asked a judge to consider whether using copyrighted material to train AI counts as “fair use,” Reuters reported. AI music company Suno also faces several lawsuits from Warner Music Group, UMG, and Sony. However, Suno reached a settlement with Warner and started a joint business venture with the company, according to the BBC.
What makes this case different is that it is one of the first major copyright complaints brought by a musician's estate, The Guardian reported.
Copyright lawsuits against AI platforms are not limited to music. Companies and individuals working in visual art, literature, and journalism have also filed claims alleging copyright infringement.