Sony and Warner Sue Anthropic Over Alleged Music Piracy

Major music publishers target AI training practices

Sony Music Publishing and Warner Chappell Music filed a federal lawsuit against Anthropic last Friday in California, alleging the AI company trained its Claude models on copyrighted songs obtained through piracy. The complaint names Anthropic co-founders Dario Amodei and Benjamin Mann as defendants.

The 48-page filing accuses Anthropic of training Claude on "tens of thousands" of copyrighted compositions without authorization, calling the conduct "one of the largest and most blatant ongoing thefts of intellectual property in history," according to Axios, which first reported details of the lawsuit. Works cited include Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas is You," Taylor Swift's "Paper Rings," Marvin Gaye's "Ain't No Mountain High Enough," and Survivor's "Eye of the Tiger."

Piracy archives at center of allegations

The publishers claim Anthropic obtained copyrighted material through digital piracy repositories, specifically Library Genesis and Pirate Library Mirror. The complaint alleges the company downloaded books containing lyrics and sheet music for songs including "Livin' On a Prayer," "Hallelujah," and "Great Balls of Fire."

According to the filing, training Claude on these works enables the AI to reproduce near-identical copies of compositions and generate lyrics that compete with human-created songs.

Why it matters

This lawsuit escalates legal pressure on AI companies over training data sourcing at a critical moment for the industry. The publishers are pursuing statutory damages of up to $150,000 per infringed composition—a powerful legal tool that requires no proof of actual financial harm for individually copyrighted commercial recordings. With tens of thousands of works allegedly involved, potential damages could reach billions of dollars, creating existential risk for AI companies that relied on pirated content.

Pattern of copyright disputes

This marks Anthropic's latest copyright battle. In September 2025, the company settled a class-action lawsuit filed by authors over pirated training data, agreeing to pay $1.5 billion. That case established that while incorporating copyrighted works into AI training may not itself violate law, obtaining those works through piracy does.

AnthropicCurrently faces another lawsuit from BMG claiming infringement of 493 compositions. According to TechCrunch, the Sony and Warner Chappell complaint is broader than previous cases and leverages evidence and legal arguments developed in earlier litigation.

Anthropic denied the allegations in a statement: "We disagree with the publishers' claims and we intend to defend ourselves robustly in court."

The publishers are seeking a jury trial. Details of the lawsuit were first reported by Axios.