Issue No. 047 · Story 03 · August 31, 2026

Sony and Warner Publishers Sue Anthropic Over Music Catalogs

Sony Music Publishing, Warner Chappell Music, and affiliated publishers sued Anthropic and two of its founders over alleged copying of musical compositions for Claude training and outputs.

§The complaint was filed in the Northern District of California and identifies tens of thousands of allegedly infringed compositions.
§The publishers allege that Anthropic obtained works through torrenting, web scraping, licensed lyric sites, and other sources.
§The claims include direct and contributory copyright infringement and removal or alteration of copyright management information.
§The publishers seek damages, destruction of infringing copies, and information about Claude's training data.

THE TAKEAWAY

The case adds major publishing catalogs and individual founder defendants to the growing set of music copyright disputes over AI development. It also combines training-data acquisition, model outputs, and copyright management information in one complaint.

Source: Music Business Worldwide

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