Judge Rules in Favor of Anthropic in Early Stage Of Music AI Copyright Lawsuit

A Federal judge from California ruled in favor of the AI startup Anthropic and rejected a preliminary bid to block the company from training its AI model Claude with lyrics owned by multiple music publishers, including Universal Music Group (UMG) this Tuesday.

According to Reuters, Eumi Lee, U.S. District Judge, said that the request sent by the publishers was too broad and didn’t show how Anthropic could cause “irreparable harm.”

“Publishers are essentially asking the Court to define the contours of a licensing market for AI training where the threshold question of fair use remains unsettled,” said Lee.

UMG, ABKO, and Concord sued Anthropic back in 2023, accusing them of copyright violation using around 500 song lyrics from artists such as Beyonce, Rolling Stones, Bruno Mars, and Beach Boys for AI training. The publishers claimed Claude provided answers to queries using the lyrics without permission.

A spokesperson from Anthropic told Reuters that the company is content with the judge’s decision and described the case as a “disruptive and amorphous request.”

“Despite the Court’s narrow ruling, we remain very confident in our case against Anthropic more broadly,” said the publishers in a statement shared by Music Business Worldwide. “The Court explicitly declined to decide the fair use question or the merits of our infringement claims at this early stage of the proceeding.”

Publishers remain hopeful as the court didn’t disagree with the proposition to treat copyright and emerging technologies with care, and the copyright infringement remains “an open question.”

There are multiple lawsuits against AI companies in course—including media publishers such as the New York Times against OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement as well—and new initiatives to find solutions for AI training.

Last year, UMG and the AI music company KLAY Vision announced a partnership to develop creative AI tools ethically and responsibly.