The Music Industry’s New Lawsuit Against Anthropic Should Have Dario Amodei Shivering With Fear
This time, there's precedent. The post The Music Industry’s New Lawsuit Against Anthropic Should Have Dario Amodei Shivering With Fear appeared first on Futurism .
Sony Music and Warner have filed a massive lawsuit against AI company Anthropic, accusing the firm of "one of the largest and most blatant ongoing thefts of intellectual property in history." The publishers claim that Anthropic trained its AI models on "tens of thousands" of copyrighted compositions without permission. They are seeking up to $150,000 per work in damages, plus up to $25,000 for each time Anthropic intentionally removed copyright data.
If successful, the lawsuit could result in several billion dollars in damages for Anthropic. This latest lawsuit is not the first of its kind, as Anthropic cofounder Benjamin Mann was previously found to have illegally downloaded a dataset of pirated works, leading to a $1.5 billion settlement in September 2025. The suit names the same dataset used in Mann's case, including hits like "Livin' on a Prayer" by Bon Jovi, "September" by Earth, Wind & Fire, and "Hallelujah" by Leonard Cohen.
Anthropic must now argue that Sony and Warner are simply rehashing old news, despite previously having to pay over a billion dollars in settlements. The company plans to defend itself vigorously, likely relying on the "fair use" defense, which allows limited use of copyrighted material without permission. However, legal precedent suggests that Amodei will face significant challenges in avoiding compensation for the unauthorized use of rightsholders' intellectual property.
Written by urgent.news from Futurism's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
