Universal Music Sues AI Startup Anthropic for Copyright Infringement Over Song Lyrics

Universal Music sued AI startup Anthropic over “systematic and widespread infringement of their copyrighted song lyrics,” per a filing Wednesday in a Tennessee federal court.

One example from the lawsuit: When a user asks Anthropic’s AI chatbot Claude about the lyrics to the song “Roar” by Katy Perry, it generates an “almost identical copy of those lyrics,” violating the rights of Concord, the copyright owner, per the filing. The lawsuit also named Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive” as an example of Anthropic’s alleged copyright infringement, as Universal owns the rights to its lyrics.

“In the process of building and operating AI models, Anthropic unlawfully copies and disseminates vast amounts of copyrighted works,” the lawsuit stated, later going on to add, “Just like the developers of other technologies that have come before, from the printing press to the copy machine to the web-crawler, AI companies must follow the law.”

Read the source article at NBC News