Universal Music Group (UMG), Concord Publishing, and ABKCO Music & Records have filed a lawsuit against the artificial intelligence (AI) startup Anthropic for allegedly infringing on their intellectual property rights when training their AI chatbot Claude.
The lawsuit was filed on October 18, alleging that Anthropic “illegally” duplicated and disseminated “vast quantities of copyrighted works, including the lyrics to numerous musical compositions” belonging to the publishers.
It referred to Anthropic’s use of the works as “widespread and systematic infringement.” It stated that the defendant cannot reproduce, distribute, or display copyrighted works to build a business without the appropriate authorization.
This fundamental principle of copyright law dates back to the Statute of Anne in 1710, and it has been repeatedly applied to numerous infringing technological advancements over the centuries. This principle remains in effect even if a company garnishes its infringement with the term “AI.”
The lawsuit alleges that Claude can create identical or nearly identical copies of at least 500 tracks, including “What a Wonderful World,” “Gimme Shelter,” “American Pie,” “Sweet Home Alabama,” and “Every Breath You Take.”
In this instance, the publishers supplied evidence of Claude’s ability to replicate nearly word-for-word UMG’s song “I will survive” by Gloria Gaynor.
The plaintiffs have requested that the court stop the alleged infringement and award them monetary damages.
This case joins the growing number of copyright infringement lawsuits against prominent AI developers.
The Author’s Guild has filed a comparable lawsuit against OpenAI, the developer of AI chatbot ChatGPT. The author Sarah Silverman and others have filed a lawsuit against Meta for copyright infringement. Google is involved in a lawsuit regarding its data scraping policy for AI training objectives.
Regarding the involvement of the music industry, UMG has been vigilant in safeguarding its catalog and the rights of its artists against AI-related copyright violations.
On October 18, it formed a strategic partnership with BandLab Technologies centered on the ethical use of AI to safeguard artist and songwriter rights.
During the summer, UMG and Google were reportedly in discussions to create a tool to enable the legal creation of AI recordings containing artists’ likenesses.
