BMG has filed a lawsuit against Anthropic for copyright infringement, joining other major music rightsholders in the ongoing AI litigation landscape.
The various publishing divisions of BMG initiated legal action on Tuesday (March 17) against the prominent company behind the AI chatbot Claude. BMG claims that the model was trained using lyrics from unlicensed songs, including Billboard Hot 100 hits like Ariana Grande’s “7 Rings” and Bruno Mars’ “Uptown Funk,” and now generates infringing lyrics when prompted.
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“Anthropic has blatantly violated copyright laws and caused direct harm to BMG and the songwriters it represents,” states the lawsuit, filed on behalf of BMG by the renowned entertainment law firm Manatt Phelps & Phillips. “Generations of inventors have introduced revolutionary products while adhering to copyright law. Anthropic’s rapid technological advancements do not excuse its blatant violations.”
The lawsuit closely mirrors separate copyright actions already taken against Anthropic by Universal Music Publishing Group (UMPG), Concord Music, and ABKCO Music. It remains unclear why BMG chose to file its own case instead of joining the other publishers, who have been contesting Anthropic in court since 2023. Notably, Billboard recently reported that BMG and Concord are in discussions regarding a merger.
BMG asserts in its complaint that it sent a cease-and-desist letter to Anthropic in December, but the AI company did not respond. A spokesperson for BMG informed Billboard on Wednesday (March 18) that Anthropic’s actions “are in direct opposition to the standards expected of any responsible member of the AI community.”
“Safeguarding the rights of those who entrust their life’s work to BMG is crucial. Creating an industry at the expense of our songwriters, recording artists, and producers without permission or compensation is unacceptable,” stated the BMG spokesperson. “We believe that generative AI can enhance creativity rather than replace it when appropriate permissions are obtained, and different segments of the music industry may benefit from it in various ways. However, copyright protection and fair remuneration are non-negotiable.”
Anthropic has not yet responded to requests for comment regarding the lawsuit.
Similar to other music publishers’ ongoing litigation against Anthropic, BMG’s complaint alleges that Claude infringes its song lyrics both during the training process (inputs) and in chatbot responses (outputs). This differentiates publisher cases from separate copyright lawsuits filed by major record labels against AI music generators Suno and Udio, which focus solely on unlicensed training.
On the input side, BMG claims Anthropic infringed its intellectual property by incorporating copyrighted lyrics into Claude’s extensive training set. The lawsuit states that these training materials include text scraped from BMG’s licensed lyric libraries MusicMatch and LyricFind, as well as sheet music books featuring works by major artists like The Rolling Stones and Justin Bieber.
BMG alleges that much of this training material was obtained through torrenting files from illegal pirate libraries. This is significant because a judge ruled in another case this summer that Anthropic should be held liable for storing torrented books, resulting in a $1.5 billion settlement with authors. Other plaintiffs in AI copyright cases, including both music publishers and record labels, have since viewed this as an opportunity to add new piracy claims to their lawsuits.
BMG also raises concerns about outputs, claiming that Anthropic is infringing its copyrights through text generated by Claude. According to the lawsuit, when prompted by users, Claude has provided all or substantial portions of lyrics from multiple BMG-owned compositions, including “Uptown Funk,” Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World,” and 3 Doors Down’s “Kryptonite.”
“Even when prompted for ‘new’ or ‘original’ song lyrics, Claude generates outputs incorporating unauthorized copies of or derivative works based on BMG’s copyrighted lyrics that Anthropic copied into training sets,” states the lawsuit. “Such unauthorized copies or derivative works arise from Claude combining various songs into one as a mash-up in response to user prompts requesting such combinations or new songs.”
BMG is currently seeking financial damages from Anthropic, arguing that the company has built “a fortune on stolen copyrighted works.” The lawsuit notes that Anthropic recently raised an additional $30 billion at a valuation of $380 billion and seeks the statutory maximum of $150,000 per act of infringement. A non-exhaustive list attached to BMG’s lawsuit includes 467 allegedly infringed songs, meaning total requested damages could exceed $70 million.
Since it faces numerous copyright lawsuits in recent years, Anthropic maintains that it is protected under the principle of “fair use” — a concept in copyright law allowing unlicensed work to be used in transformative ways. Whether AI training qualifies as fair use remains an unresolved legal issue currently being litigated across numerous courts nationwide.
