Elvis rights holders sue Anthropic over alleged AI training on songs
Elvis Presley’s music rights holders have sued Anthropic, alleging it used his songs to train AI models without permission and seeking $41 million. The case highlights how copyright disputes over AI training can involve individual artists’ catalogues as well as large collections of works.
The complaint, filed on 23 October, alleges Anthropic trained on 274 Elvis songs and bypassed digital rights protections or removed copyright information from 247. The plaintiffs include Authentic Brands Group, Raleigh Music Publishing, trusts and an individual; they cite Presley’s more than one billion record sales. Anthropic says it disagrees with the claims and will defend itself, while arguing in other cases that training on copyrighted material can be fair use.
In short
- Elvis rights holders seek $41 million from Anthropic.
- They allege the company used 274 songs to train AI.
- Anthropic disputes the claims and plans to defend itself.
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The case for
The rights holders can argue that using 274 songs to train commercial AI models without permission deprives creators and owners of control over how their work is used. Alleged circumvention of digital protections or removal of copyright information, if proved, would strengthen the case for compensation and safeguards that make licensing meaningful.
The case against
Anthropic can argue that training a model on copyrighted works is a transformative use that analyses patterns rather than offering the original songs as substitutes, and may therefore qualify as fair use. Requiring permission for every work used in training could make AI development costly or impractical, so the legal rules should distinguish model training from distributing or reproducing the songs.
Explained simply
Elvis Presley was a US singer whose recordings remain widely known and commercially valuable. The rights to songs and recordings can be owned or managed by companies, publishers and trusts, rather than by the performer alone.
Anthropic is a company that develops artificial intelligence models, which learn patterns from large collections of material. Whether using copyrighted works to train such models requires permission is being disputed in courts and can depend on the circumstances and applicable law.
The case concerns the rights holders’ control over Presley’s catalogue and how copyright law applies to AI training. Its outcome could help clarify how those rules affect individual artists’ works as well as larger collections.
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Originally published by Engadget as “Elvis Presley’s estate is suing Anthropic over copyright infringement”.