Elvis rightsholders sue Anthropic over songs used to train AI

A group of rights holders who own or control Elvis Presley songs has sued Anthropic for copyright infringement, alleging the AI company used The King's works to train its AI models. The complaint was filed last Friday in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. The plaintiffs seek damages and a share of Anthropic's profits, or $150,000 per work, which values damages at $41.1 million.

Complaint alleges misuse of Elvis songs

The complaint states that the plaintiffs bring the action to enforce exclusive rights against a defendant that built its entire business model on copyright infringement at a scale never seen before. It compares Anthropic to the infinite monkey theorem, saying the company found mimicry, described as copyright infringement, to be easier than training from first principles. The lawsuit alleges that fair use doctrines do not apply to all content used to train AI models. It also alleges that Anthropic should have known that some torrents and datasets used for model training were either licensed and not freely usable, or stolen. It further alleges that the company should know it needs a license before allowing Claude products to produce lyrics to Elvis songs when prompted, and that chatbots cost rights holders money when users prompt them to produce content in the style of artists whose works are subject to copyright.

Plaintiffs seek damages or per-work payments

The plaintiffs want damages and a slice of Anthropic's profits, or $150,000 per work. The latter option values damages at $41.1 million. The rights holders own or control 274 Elvis songs, whose titles the complaint uses as metaphors for the plaintiffs' grievances.

Anthropic's response and prior settlement

Anthropic has reportedly vowed to defend the matter. The company already resolved a similar case in which it was accused of training its models on books without seeking or securing permission from authors, creating a $1.5 billion fund to compensate writers. The plaintiffs note that Anthropic has billions of cash on hand and plans a mega-float, which it announced today, so it can afford to pay. They also invoke Elvis song titles, including "A Little Less Conversation," "Don't Be Cruel," "The Devil In Disguise," and "Patch It Up," in urging payment.

Sources: theregister.com · engadget.com