Sony Music Publishing, Warner Chappell and 33 other publishers sue Anthropic over lyrics in Claude training data

Thirty-five music publishers, including Sony Music Publishing and Warner Chappell Music, filed a 48-page copyright complaint against Anthropic in the US District Court for the Northern District of California on 28 August 2026, also naming CEO Dario Amodei and co-founder Benjamin Mann as individual defendants. The complaint alleges Anthropic unlawfully acquired and copied tens of thousands of copyrighted musical compositions through 'torrenting, scraping and downloading' and used copies in developing and training its Claude models, and that Claude reproduces copyrighted lyrics in its outputs. It brings four counts: direct infringement through torrenting against all three defendants; contributory infringement against Amodei and Mann; direct infringement against Anthropic based on alleged scraping, training, and outputs; and removal or alteration of copyright management information. The publishers seek statutory damages of up to USD 150,000 for each work allegedly infringed wilfully and up to USD 25,000 for each alleged CMI removal/alteration, plus a jury trial. Anthropic says it disagrees with the claims and intends to defend itself in court.

Boundary notes: all conduct claims are complaint-stage allegations, unproven; case had not been tested as of reporting. Distinct from the earlier Oct 2023 UMG/Concord/ABKCO lyrics suit against Anthropic (different plaintiffs, ~499 works, N.D. Cal., guardrails stipulation approved Jan 2025). Not legal advice.