Music publishers sue Anthropic, allege "blantant theft" of copyrighted music - Axios
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei. Driving the news: Units of Sony Music and Warner Music filed the suit in federal court in northern California late Friday night, naming Anthropic, CEO Dario Amodei and co-founder Benjamin Mann as defendants. Between the lines: This suit is not the first time Anthropic has been accused of piracy to train its models.
Add Axios as your preferred source to
see more of our stories on Google.
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei. Photo: Ruhani Kaur/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Some of the world's largest music publishers filed a blockbuster lawsuit against Anthropic late Friday night, alleging "one of the largest and most blatant ongoing thefts of intellectual property in history."
Why it matters: The suit is the opening salvo in what is now likely to be a yearslong fight over music, AI, and how intellectual property is protected in a new era of technology.
Driving the news: Units of Sony Music and Warner Music filed the suit in federal court in northern California late Friday night, naming Anthropic, CEO Dario Amodei and co-founder Benjamin Mann as defendants.
The big picture: The Sony/Warner lawsuit is notable because it's broad.
What they're saying: "Defendants Anthropic and its founders Dario Amodei and Benjamin Mann have conducted a brazen campaign of illegally torrenting, scraping, and downloading copyrighted works on a massive scale in order to develop, operate, and reap enormous profits from Anthropic's 'Claude' series of artificial intelligence ('AI') models," the plaintiffs write in the 48-page complaint.
Thought bubble from Axios' Sara Fischer: The music's copyright system is structurally complicated, which can expose AI companies to multiple lawsuits for the same song.
Between the lines: This suit is not the first time Anthropic has been accused of piracy to train its models.
Yes, but: The music industry is notorious for being litigious when it comes to copyright, as anyone who was around in the heyday of Napster and LimeWire can attest.
For the record: "We disagree with the publishers' claims and we intend to defend ourselves robustly in court," Anthropic said in a statement.
Editor's note: This story has been updated with additional information throughout.