Authentic Brands Group and other entities controlling Elvis Presley's music rights have filed a lawsuit against Anthropic, alleging the AI company used 274 copyrighted Elvis songs without license or payment to train its Claude AI models [1]. The complaint identifies some of Presley's most iconic hits including "All Shook Up," "Can't Help Falling in Love," "Don't Be Cruel," "A Little Less Conversation," and "Return to Sender" as part of the alleged infringement [1]. According to the plaintiffs, the infringement has persisted "throughout the entire development" of Anthropic's flagship Claude models and continues today as users generate outputs reproducing copyrighted lyrics or creating unauthorized adaptations [1].
The lawsuit represents part of a broader wave of copyright litigation against Anthropic and other AI companies. The complaint characterizes Anthropic as having "built its entire business model on infringing copyrights at an unfathomable scale" through mass scraping of internet content and pirating of books [1]. This lawsuit follows Anthropic's landmark $1.5 billion settlement last year in a copyright infringement case brought by authors who alleged the company illegally used pirated books to train AI models—described as the largest settlement in American copyright case history [1]. Additional music-related lawsuits against Anthropic have been filed by Universal Music, Concord Music Group, ABKCO Music, BMG Rights Management, Sony Music Publishing, and Warner Chappell Music, with some cases expanding in January [1]. Anthropic and music generation company Suno have also faced lawsuits from independent music publisher Round Hill [1].
Anthropric's legal team stated the company "disagree[s] with the claims and intend[s] to defend this case fully" [1], but the company faces mounting legal pressure from multiple major music rights holders and publishers over its AI training practices.
CONCLUSION
The Elvis Presley rights lawsuit represents a significant escalation in copyright litigation against Anthropic, following its $1.5 billion settlement with authors and amid coordinated legal action from major music publishers and rights holders. The case underscores growing legal and regulatory challenges to AI companies' data acquisition practices, with potential implications for Anthropic's business model and the broader AI industry's approach to training data sourcing.