Anthropic already paid $1.5 billion: Why Sony Music and Warner Chappell still want more | Today’s news
Antropic recently paid $1.5 billion to settle a major copyright case involving pirated books. But Sony Music Publishing and Warner Chappell Music say the payment didn’t solve everything. Their new lawsuit covers the songs, lyrics, sheet music and alleged ongoing copyright infringement.
The publishers filed their case in federal court in California on August 28. They also named Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and co-founder Benjamin Mann as defendants. According to the filing, Anthropic committed a “flagrant violation of copyright law.”
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The complaint alleges that Anthropic illegally downloaded, scraped and torrented thousands of copyrighted musical works. These materials reportedly helped train Claude, the company’s popular AI model.
Sony and Warner allege that Anthropic collected the songs from several unauthorized online sources. These reportedly included Library Genesis and Pirate Library Mirror. The company also reportedly scraped licensed lyrics platforms, including Musixmatch and LyricFind. According to the publishers, Claude AI may reproduce protected texts in its responses.
The songs listed include famous works of several generations. Examples include “Hallelujah”, “Uptown Funk” and “All I Want for Christmas Is You”. Taylor Swift’s “Cruel Summer” and “Paper Rings” also appear in the complaint.
An earlier $1.5 billion settlement involved a different group of copyright owners. The authors accused Anthropic of obtaining millions of books from pirated websites. The judge found that training AI with books could qualify as fair use. However, building a permanent library through piracy remained a separate issue of infringement.
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This difference explains why the earlier payment now offers limited protection. The settlement covered claims for specific books and their past acquisition by Anthropic. She did not purchase a blanket license for every copyrighted work. It also did not resolve the claims of unrelated music publishers.
Why $1.5 billion is not enough
Sony and Warner argue that the deal failed to deter Anthropic. They describe the payment as a mere business expense for a valuable company.
Their lawsuit seeks up to $150,000 for each work that was willfully infringed. It also seeks $25,000 for each occasion that copyright management information was allegedly removed from copyrighted material.
With thousands of songs involved, potential damages could reach several billion dollars. However, these are the statutory amounts required, not the final court award. Publishers must still prove ownership, copying, infringement and any alleged intent.
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Sony and Warner believe the $1.5 billion was insufficient because their claims remain unpaid. More importantly, they allege that Anthropic continued to use an illegal sourcing model. The court will now decide whether these allegations survive evidence and legal scrutiny. Its outcome may affect future agreements between creators and developers.
What Anthropic says
Anthropic denies the allegations and promises a strong defense. The company vows to “vigorously defend itself.”
“This is the third lawsuit by the same attorneys to recycle allegations from cases already before the court. The training of generative AI models is a transformative principle of fair use — as the court ruled in (the previous case) — and we will vigorously defend it,” Anthropic said in a statement.
The dispute is about more than whether machines can learn from creative works. Courts must also examine where the training material came from. They must decide whether the outputs reproduce the protected expressions too closely. License agreements and website terms and conditions may further affect the result.
