Official announcements from Anthropic or legal documents

Amazon-Backed Anthropic Agrees to Halt Use of 500 Copyrighted Songs in AI Training After 2023 Lawsuit

Jan 3, 2025, 01:16 PM

Anthropic, an Amazon-backed AI company, has reached a deal with several major music publishers to address a copyright infringement lawsuit over the use of song lyrics in its AI training data. The agreement, signed off by U.S. District Judge Eumi Lee, mandates that Anthropic maintain existing guardrails to prevent its Claude AI chatbot from providing lyrics to songs owned by the publishers or creating new lyrics based on copyrighted material. The deal also includes a mechanism for publishers to notify Anthropic if the guardrails are not effectively preventing copyright infringement, prompting an investigation and cooperation in good faith. The lawsuit, filed in 2023 by publishers including Universal Music Group, Concord Music Group, and ABKCO, accused Anthropic of training its AI on lyrics from at least 500 songs by artists such as Katy Perry, the Rolling Stones, and Beyoncé without consent or payment. Anthropic has stated that Claude is not designed for copyright infringement and has processes in place to prevent such issues, while also asserting that using copyrighted material in AI training is a fair use under existing copyright law. A court ruling on a preliminary injunction that could bar Anthropic from using copyrighted lyrics in future AI models is expected in the coming months.