Elvis Presley rightsholders sue Anthropic over 274 songs used to train Claude

Elvis Presley rightsholders have sued Anthropic, alleging that the AI company used 274 copyrighted songs without permission to train Claude and other models. The complaint, filed Friday as ABE EPE LLC v. Anthropic, identifies “Can’t Help Falling in Love,” “A Little Less Conversation” and “Don’t Be Cruel” among the works allegedly infringed. A unit of Authentic Brands Group, which largely controls Presley’s intellectual-property rights, filed the action alongside other entities holding Elvis-related rights. VICE reported that members of the Presley family were also plaintiffs. The suit seeks $150,000 for each track, amounting to about $41 million if awarded across all 274 songs. The plaintiffs contend that Anthropic used Presley’s work at scale to build technology capable of producing unlicensed derivative works. Richard Busch, their lead attorney, said Anthropic had built its business model on copyright infringement “at a scale never seen before” and that the Elvis plaintiffs were “deeply protective” of the songs. The complaint further alleges that Claude has generated infringing output based on material from virtually every song catalogue available online, including the Presley works. It says the alleged infringement continued after Anthropic introduced guardrails following earlier litigation. The filing is among the most prominent AI-copyright cases brought for an individual musician, according to Billboard. It follows Reservoir’s separate lawsuit against Anthropic over alleged AI music training, as we reported Oct. 21. Anthropic was already facing a Tennessee federal lawsuit filed by Universal Music, ABKCO and Concord in 2023. That earlier case alleged that Claude had been trained on lyrics from at least 500 copyrighted songs and could reproduce lyrics in response to both direct and indirect prompts. The broader legal question remains unsettled. AI companies have argued that training models on existing works is protected by copyright’s fair-use doctrine, while music rightsholders contend that reproducing works to develop commercial systems requires permission. No court had ruled that Anthropic infringed the Presley songs at the time of the filing.