Sony Music and Warner Chappell Initiate Billion-Dollar Lawsuit Against Anthropic

Sony Music Publishing and Warner Chappell Music have accused Anthropic of extensive copyright infringement related to the training of its AI models, Claude. The publishers are seeking up to $150,000 for each illegally used musical work, as reported by Music Business Worldwide.

Music Publishers vs. Claude

The lawsuit has been filed in the federal court for the Northern District of California. Alongside Anthropic, the defendants include its CEO Dario Amodei and co-founder Benjamin Mann. Sony and Warner claim that the company systematically uploaded and utilized copyrighted works to train Claude.

The plaintiffs assert that this encompasses tens of thousands of musical compositions, including well-known tracks like "Ain't No Mountain High Enough," "Livin' on a Prayer," and "Hallelujah."

Additionally, the publishers allege that Anthropic has also utilized pirated copies of books and other materials, and has extracted song lyrics from licensed sites such as Musixmatch and LyricFind.

Hundreds of Thousands per Song

Sony and Warner are requesting a jury trial and damages of up to $150,000 for each infringed work. They are also seeking up to $25,000 for each instance of removing or altering copyright information.

If a significant number of infringements are proven, the total claims could amount to several billion dollars.

The publishers describe Anthropic's actions as "one of the largest and most blatant ongoing thefts of intellectual property in history."

"We do not agree with the publishers' claims and intend to vigorously defend ourselves in court," stated a representative from Anthropic to TechCrunch.

Previous Allegations Against Anthropic

This new lawsuit adds to the ongoing conflict between Anthropic and copyright holders.

In January 2026, Universal Music Group, Concord, and ABKCO filed a separate $3 billion lawsuit against the company, accusing Claude of infringing copyrights on more than 20,000 musical works.

Prior to this, Anthropic faced claims from authors and publishers for using pirated copies of books to train its models. In 2025, the company agreed to pay $1.5 billion to settle that case.

It is worth noting that journalists from 404 Media discovered that Amazon scanned and destroyed rare books for AI training, thereby avoiding copyright infringement allegations.