Elvis Presley music rights holders sue Anthropic over AI training

The owners of rights to Elvis Presley’s music catalog have sued artificial intelligence company Anthropic, accusing it of using 274 songs recorded by the singer to train its Claude AI models without permission, The Guardian reported Sunday.

The lawsuit was filed Friday in the US District Court for the Northern District of California by a subsidiary of Authentic Brands Group, which acquired Presley’s intellectual property and trademark rights in 2013.

The plaintiffs include music publishers Raleigh Music Publishing and Abilene Music, as well as trusts linked to songwriter Luigi Creatore and the Aberbach family, whose publishing business controlled rights to songs recorded by Presley.

The lawsuit alleges that Anthropic copied the songs without a license or payment and retained the material in an internal repository for training future versions of Claude.

The catalog allegedly includes Can’t Help Falling in Love, All Shook Up, Don’t Be Cruel, A Little Less Conversation and Return to Sender.

The plaintiffs are seeking $150,000 for each of the 274 allegedly infringed songs, amounting to $41.1 million, with additional damages bringing their total claim to $48.6 million.

Lead attorney Richard Busch accused Anthropic of building its business on copyright infringement and said the plaintiffs were “deeply protective” of the songs.

Anthropic disputed the allegations.

“We disagree with the claims and intend to defend this case fully,” the company told NBC News.

The case is among a growing number of copyright disputes between AI developers and the music industry and could have broader implications for how copyrighted music is used to train AI models.