Elvis Presley’s Rights Holders Sue Anthropic, Claiming Its Claude AI Was Trained on 274 of His Songs

SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 26 (TodayViralUSA) — The owners of Elvis Presley’s music catalog have sued artificial intelligence company Anthropic, accusing it of using the lyrics of 274 songs associated with the King of Rock ’n’ Roll to train its Claude chatbot without a license or payment.

The lawsuit, filed Friday in federal court in the Northern District of California, was brought by Authentic Brands Group, which controls Presley’s intellectual property, together with other publishers, trusts and individuals that own rights to the songs. Billboard first reported the case.

From “Don’t Be Cruel” to “Return to Sender”

The works named in the complaint include some of Presley’s best-known recordings, among them “All Shook Up,” “Can’t Help Falling in Love,” “Don’t Be Cruel,” “A Little Less Conversation” and “Return to Sender.”

The plaintiffs allege the infringement ran through “the entire development” of Anthropic’s Claude models and continues as users generate outputs that reproduce the lyrics or create unauthorized adaptations. They say the lyrics, which they license to sites such as Musixmatch and LyricFind, were scraped into web archives used for AI training, and that Anthropic stripped out songwriter and publisher information in the process. The complaint also argues that Claude’s lyric filters cover only a narrow set of popular songs and can be easily sidestepped.

What they want

The rights holders are seeking up to $41.1 million in statutory damages for willful copyright infringement, the maximum of $150,000 for each of the 274 works, along with additional damages under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. They are also asking for a permanent injunction and an order requiring Anthropic to destroy unauthorized copies of the works, and they have demanded a jury trial.

“The Elvis Plaintiffs are deeply protective of these iconic songs,” lead attorney Richard Busch said in a statement.

An Anthropic spokesperson said: “We disagree with the claims and intend to defend this case fully.” The allegations have not been tested in court.

A growing wave of music cases

AI developers already face copyright suits from record labels and music publishers, but the Presley case is among the first high-profile actions brought by the owner of a single artist’s catalog. Anthropic agreed last year to a $1.5 billion settlement with authors who said the company used pirated books to train its models, the largest copyright settlement in U.S. history.