Elvis Presley music owners sue Anthropic over 274 songs allegedly used to train Claude

What happened

On October 23, 2026, companies and trusts overseeing Elvis Presley's music, led by Authentic Brands Group alongside Raleigh Music Publishing and other rights holders, sued Anthropic in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. The complaint alleges Anthropic trained its Claude model on 274 Presley songs without permission or royalties, and that Claude can generate material closely resembling the songs.

Claims and damages sought

The plaintiffs allege Anthropic copied the songs without authorization, stripped or altered copyright management information from 247 of the works, and bypassed digital rights management protections. They seek statutory damages of up to $150,000 per work, about $41.1 million for the 274 compositions, plus about $7.5 million under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and ask the court to reach training datasets, repositories, model weights and server infrastructure carrying unauthorized copies.

Response and status

An Anthropic spokesperson said the company disagrees with the claims and intends to defend the case fully. These are allegations in a complaint, not court findings; no ruling has been reported. The suit follows a separate October 21, 2026 complaint by publisher Reservoir Media against Anthropic over 853 songs, covered separately.