Authentic Brands Group, which owns the rights to Elvis Presley’s music catalogue and likeness, has sued artificial intelligence company Anthropic, alleging that it used 274 of the late singer’s songs to train its AI models without permission.
The lawsuit was filed on Friday and first reported by Billboard. It alleges that Anthropic infringed the rights to songs including Can’t Help Falling in Love, All Shook Up and A Little Less Conversation.
The plaintiffs are seeking $150,000 for each allegedly infringed track, bringing the total claim to approximately $41 million.
Lead attorney Richard Busch said in the lawsuit that the action sought to enforce the exclusive rights of Presley’s estate against a company whose business model, he alleged, was built on copyright infringement on an unprecedented scale.
The lawsuit also claims that Anthropic’s AI model, Claude, has generated infringing material based on copyrighted works across music catalogues available on the internet.
It further alleges that the company’s safeguards intended to limit copyright-infringing outputs were ineffective. According to the filing, Anthropic knew these measures were insufficient but continued to engage in what the plaintiffs describe as wilful copyright infringement.
Anthropic has faced wider scrutiny over the use of copyrighted material to train AI systems. Music companies, including Sony, Universal and Warner Records, have also pursued legal action against AI firms over alleged copyright infringement.
The case involving Presley’s catalogue is among the first major legal challenges brought directly by an artist’s estate against an AI developer. Its outcome could influence how AI companies are permitted to use existing music catalogues to train their models.
AI music platforms analyse large quantities of recorded music to learn musical sounds, structures and expressions, allowing users to generate new music through text or speech prompts.
Musicians have repeatedly raised concerns about their recordings and voices being used without permission to train AI systems, as well as the possibility that AI-generated music could displace work created by human artists.
Concerns have also grown over AI-generated tracks and the impersonation of living musicians on streaming platforms. Spotify announced last week that it had removed about 50 million songs it considered AI-generated spam from its recommendations over the previous year.