Elvis Presley’s Song Owners Sue Anthropic

SAN JOSE, Calif., Oct. 23 — TheThe owners of Elvis Presley’s songs sued Anthropic on Friday, accusing it of training its Claude models on the lyrics of 274 songs without a license and of generating infringing versions. They seek $48.6 million in statutory damages: $41.1 million for copyright infringement, the $150,000 maximum for each work, and $7.5 million under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

ABG EPE IP LLC, a unit of Authentic Brands Group, brought the suit with other companies, trusts and individuals. “We disagree with the claims and intend to defend this case fully,” an Anthropic spokesperson wrote, as quoted by NBC News on Sunday.

It is the seventh suit by music rights holders against Anthropic in the federal court in San Jose, by Daily Cortex’s count of the docket, and the second in three days, as Anthropic prepares, Reuters has reported, to go public in mid-November.Seven SuitsConcord and other publishers (filed in 2023 and before the San Jose court since June 2024; a second suit on Jan. 28), BMG (March 17), Round Hill (Aug. 17), Sony Music Publishing and Warner Chappell (Aug. 28), Reservoir (Oct. 21) and the Presley owners (Oct. 23). Judge Eumi K. Lee has the first five. Statutory damages are counted by the work, so additional distinct works can increase the statutory copyright damages sought.

The Complaint

Daily Cortex read the 28-page complaint in a copy posted by a website that tracks AI lawsuits; it bears the court’s filing stamp but omits the exhibit listing the songs. Among them, the complaint says, are “All Shook Up,” “Can’t Help Falling in Love,” “Don’t Be Cruel,” “A Little Less Conversation” and “Return To Sender.”

“Anthropic’s infringement of the Works has occurred throughout the entire development of its Claude models and continues through the output generated by the models for Anthropic’s users,” it says. It accuses Anthropic of scraping the lyrics, keeping them in a permanent internal library, stripping out songwriter credits and downloading pirated books that contain them. Richard Busch, the plaintiffs’ lead lawyer, signed it.The LawyerMr. Busch represented Eminem’s producers, F.B.T. Productions, in a Ninth Circuit case over royalties on digital downloads, and Marvin Gaye’s heirs, for whom, his firm says, he won a $7.4 million jury verdict in the “Blurred Lines” case. He also represents Round Hill and Reservoir against Anthropic.

The two Digital Millennium Copyright Act claims, $685,000 and $6.85 million, are for getting around access controls on licensed lyrics and streaming sites and for removing copyright-management information such as songwriter credits. Beyond money, the plaintiffs ask for a permanent injunction and an order that Anthropic deliver for impoundment or destruction all unauthorized copies of the songs, “including copies retained in training datasets, internal repositories, model weights, and server infrastructure.” They also ask for a complete accounting of the training data involving the songs.

The complaint says that even after Anthropic “supposedly put up ‘guardrails’ after being sued,” Claude continues to infringe. Asked recently to recreate specific songs “for a modern audience,” it says, Claude did so and “admitted” that its versions were “edging past ‘inspired by’ into reproducing the copyrighted song, even when the words are swapped out.”

The complaint attributes the reply to Claude Sonnet 5 and, for the rewrites, cites Round Hill’s August complaint, which it says discussed Claude’s outputs for songs including the Goo Goo Dolls’ “Iris” and Bonnie Tyler’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart.” Reservoir’s Oct. 21 complaint quotes the same reply. Of the Presley songs, the complaint alleges “on information and belief” that Claude “has created infringing output for all 274 of the Works.”

Anthropic’s business model was admittedly and clearly: infringe now, and hope for a two-trillion-dollar IPO later.

Anthropic is the only defendant.

The Defense

In the oldest suit, brought by Concord and other publishers, Anthropic argues that training Claude on lyrics is “transformative” fair use, and that under Ninth Circuit law direct liability for allegedly infringing outputs falls on whoever “instigated” the copying: “here, the person who prompted Claude.” Holding Anthropic directly liable, it wrote, would “fail to distinguish between companies that actively but imperfectly seek to avoid infringement and those that aggressively promote it.” In a suit brought by authors, a federal judge ruled in June 2025 that training Anthropic’s models on their books was fair use, but left claims over pirated copies in its library for trial; later that year Anthropic agreed to a $1.5 billion settlement, NBC noted.

The next date to watch is Oct. 30, when Judge Eumi K. Lee, who heard arguments on summary judgment in the oldest suit on Oct. 21 and has not ruled, takes up its remaining motions over expert witnesses. The hearing is set for 1 p.m. Pacific, by Zoom.

Reservoir’s suit, over 853 compositions, seeks $127.95 million in statutory copyright damages and $151.4 million with its own Digital Millennium Copyright Act claims; together, the two suits filed in the past week demand about $200 million in statutory damages.Counted by the WorkThe Copyright Act lets an owner take statutory damages instead of proving its losses: $750 to $30,000 a work, as the court considers just, and up to $150,000 if the court finds the infringement willful. For 274 works, that is $205,500 to $8.22 million, or up to $41.1 million if willful.

On Friday, too, Round Hill filed an amended complaint, under an agreed schedule leading to a motion to dismiss; Daily Cortex has not seen it.

Anthropic is pressing ahead with a public offering in the middle of November, Reuters reported on Oct. 22, citing people familiar with the matter, who cautioned that the plans could change. The complaint draws the link itself: “Anthropic’s business model was admittedly and clearly: infringe now, and hope for a two-trillion-dollar IPO later.” No prospectus had appeared on the S.E.C.’s EDGAR system by early Monday. Subject to exceptions, S.E.C. rules require one to disclose material pending legal proceedings and “the relief sought.”

Daily Cortex is written with AI models, including Anthropic’s Claude, and fact-checked with OpenAI’s GPT models.