A subsidiary of Authentic Brands Group and other holders of rights to Elvis Presley’s music filed a copyright lawsuit against Anthropic on 23 October 2026, alleging that the company used 274 songs to train its AI models without permission, NME reported. Authentic Brands Group controls much of Presley’s intellectual property, including rights to his name, image and likeness. The plaintiffs also allege that Claude, Anthropic’s chatbot, can generate unauthorised versions of the songs.
Key points
- The complaint alleges unauthorised use of 274 songs associated with Elvis Presley to train Anthropic’s models.
- The plaintiffs seek statutory damages of up to $150,000 per song, or approximately $41.1 million.
- They also allege that Claude reproduced protected material after Anthropic introduced safeguards intended to restrict such outputs.
- Music publishers have brought earlier copyright cases against Anthropic over lyrics and sheet music.
The 274 Presley songs in dispute
The complaint identifies songs including “Can’t Help Falling in Love”, “All Shook Up” and “A Little Less Conversation”, The Guardian reported. The plaintiffs allege that Anthropic used Presley’s work for model training without their consent. That allegation concerns what went into the models. A separate part of their case concerns what Claude produces when a user asks it for a song.
The case is styled ABE EPE LLC v. Anthropic, Rolling Stone reported. “Don’t Be Cruel” is among the works named in the lawsuit. Richard Busch, the plaintiffs’ lead attorney, wrote that they had brought the action to enforce their exclusive rights against Anthropic. The complaint accuses the company of building its business through infringement on a vast scale — a characterisation made by the plaintiffs, rather than a finding about Anthropic’s conduct.
The plaintiffs seek statutory damages of up to $150,000 for each of the 274 songs, amounting to approximately $41.1 million, according to NME. That is the amount requested in the lawsuit, not an award. The claim brings together rights associated with a single artist’s catalogue, whereas the earlier music copyright actions against Anthropic described in the reporting were brought by publishers and other industry organisations.
Claude’s outputs after Anthropic’s safeguards
The complaint alleges that Claude has generated infringing material from songs across catalogues available online, including Presley’s works. It also alleges that Anthropic introduced guardrails intended to limit outputs that infringe music copyrights, but that those measures failed to stop such outputs. Both propositions are the plaintiffs’ account of Claude’s behaviour, as reported by The Guardian.
One example in the complaint concerns prompts asking Claude to recreate particular songs “for a modern audience”. The plaintiffs allege that the resulting versions remained close to the originals in their structure, hooks and lyrics. Rolling Stone reported that the complaint quotes Claude describing the renders as having the “same structure, same hooks reused with light rewording”. The example gives the plaintiffs an output allegation alongside their claim about the material used in training.
Anthropic has argued before that US fair use law can permit the use of copyrighted works in AI model training, NME reported. That position concerns permission to use works in training. The Presley plaintiffs also allege reproduction in Claude’s responses, including responses generated after safeguards were put in place. Anthropic had not publicly responded to this lawsuit at the time of NME’s report.
Anthropic’s earlier music copyright cases
The Presley action follows litigation against Anthropic by music publishers. Universal Music Publishing Group, Concord Music Group and ABKCO sued the company in October 2023, alleging that Claude reproduced copyrighted lyrics without authorisation. Their examples included songs by Katy Perry, Gloria Gaynor and The Rolling Stones. In that case, the alleged infringement concerned material appearing in the chatbot’s answers.
Busch previously represented Marvin Gaye’s estate in its copyright case against Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams over “Blurred Lines”. That case resulted in a ruling that the song infringed Gaye’s “Got To Give It Up”. The Presley plaintiffs’ allegations against Anthropic concern a different use of music: copyrighted works allegedly used to train a model, together with outputs that the plaintiffs say reproduce protected songs.
Sony Music Publishing and Warner Chappell also filed a lawsuit against Anthropic in August 2026, accusing the company of using copyrighted lyrics and sheet music to train Claude. The works identified in that action included material associated with The Beatles, Taylor Swift and Michael Jackson.
