Artificial intelligence company Anthropic won an early victory in a copyright lawsuit filed by major music publishers. A California federal judge on Tuesday denied a request to block Anthropic from using copyrighted song lyrics to train its AI chatbot, Claude.
U.S. District Judge Eumi Lee ruled that the request was too broad and that the publishers failed to prove they suffered “irreparable harm” from Anthropic’s actions.
In response to the ruling, the publishers, including Universal Music Group (UMG), Concord, and ABKCO, said they “remain very confident in our case against Anthropic more broadly.” An Anthropic spokesperson expressed satisfaction, stating that the court had rejected the publishers’ “disruptive and amorphous request.”
The lawsuit, filed in 2023, accuses Anthropic of using copyrighted lyrics from at least 500 songs without permission. The works in question include lyrics from artists such as Beyoncé, The Rolling Stones, and The Beach Boys. The publishers argue that Anthropic trained its AI model by using these lyrics without securing proper licenses.
This case is part of a growing legal battle over the use of copyrighted material in AI training. Lawsuits have been filed by authors, news organizations, and visual artists, who claim that their work has been used without consent to develop AI products.
Tech companies such as OpenAI, Microsoft, and Meta argue that their AI models rely on copyrighted content under the principle of “fair use.” They claim that AI systems study this material to generate new, transformative content, making their use legally permissible.
Fair use is expected to be a key issue in the lawsuits, though Judge Lee’s ruling did not directly address it. She also dismissed the publishers’ claim that Anthropic’s actions harmed the music licensing market.
“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,” Lee wrote in her decision.
While this ruling favors Anthropic, the broader copyright case is still ongoing.
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