Elvis Presley's Rights Holders Sue Anthropic Over 274 Songs, Seeking Up to $150,000 Each

The Elvis Presley suit against Anthropic leans on the authors' case that Anthropic settled. The complaint reads the 2025 ruling in Bartz v. Anthropic as holding that keeping unlicensed copies in a permanent library is not fair use, and argues that Anthropic did the same with song lyrics. Authentic Brands Group, which controls Presley's intellectual property, filed the case with other rights holders on Friday, October 23, NBC News reported. The court docket lists it as ABG EPE IP LLC et al. v. Anthropic PBC, No. 5:26-cv-12473, in the US District Court for the Northern District of California.

What the complaint alleges#

The plaintiffs accuse Anthropic of infringing copyrights in 274 Presley songs "without any license or payment," according to NBC News. NBC News lists songs including "All Shook Up," "Can't Help Falling in Love," "Don't Be Cruel" and "Return to Sender." They allege infringement throughout "the entire development" of Claude, continuing as users generate outputs that reproduce lyrics or adapt the songs, NBC News reported.

The Guardian quotes the complaint as saying that Anthropic's "institution of guardrails (albeit ineffectively)" to limit infringing outputs shows it "knowingly engaged and continues to willfully engage in copyright infringement." Lead attorney Richard Busch wrote in the complaint that Anthropic "has built its entire business model based on copyright infringement at a scale never seen before," according to The Guardian.

What the complaint adds#

A summary of the 28-page complaint by Copyright Now, a copyright-law news site, says it alleges that the lyrics reached Claude through Common Crawl, The Pile, including a YouTube subtitles subset, and pirated books that contain lyrics. It quotes an answer Anthropic gave in the Bartz case, which says at least one released Claude model was trained on data derived from YouTube subtitles in a version of The Pile. The complaint also alleges that Anthropic keeps the works in an internal repository indefinitely, apart from any training run, and that its data-cleaning removed song titles and songwriter credits, according to the summary.

That retention claim is the one aimed at Bartz. The complaint cites the Bartz ruling for the point that keeping works in a general-purpose archive is legally distinct from using them to train a specific model, and that indefinite retention of unlicensed copies is not fair use, Copyright Now reports. If a court accepts that reading, the plaintiffs would not have to win the harder argument that training itself infringes. The outputs part of the case targets guardrails Anthropic added after music publishers led by Concord sued in October 2023. The complaint alleges they cover only some songs and are easy to get around, and that newer Claude models refuse to print lyrics but will still rewrite the songs closely. The complaint lists two Concord cases and one BMG case against Anthropic as related actions in the same district. Times of AI has followed the Concord case's discovery fights.

Beyond infringement, the complaint brings claims for circumventing access controls under section 1201 of the copyright law and removing copyright management information under section 1202. It totals $685,000 and $6.85 million in statutory damages under those claims on top of the $41.1 million for infringement, Copyright Now reports.

What they want, and Anthropic's answer#

The plaintiffs seek $41.1 million in statutory damages, up to $150,000 for each of the 274 works they say were wilfully infringed, NBC News reported, citing the complaint. An Anthropic spokesperson said: "We disagree with the claims and intend to defend this case fully."

NBC News notes that Anthropic previously agreed to a $1.5 billion settlement with authors over pirated books, and The Guardian notes earlier suits against Anthropic by record labels.

Limits#

• The complaint PDF could not be downloaded; its contents are as reported by NBC News, The Guardian and Copyright Now's paragraph-cited summary. The case number, court, filing date and plaintiffs are from the court docket.
• The $41.1 million figure is what the plaintiffs are asking for, not an award, and none of the allegations has been tested in court.
• The plaintiffs' reading of Bartz is their own; Anthropic has not yet answered the complaint.

Sources#

• Justia: ABG EPE IP LLC et al v. Anthropic PBC, No. 5:2026cv12473, docket (N.D. Cal., filed October 23, 2026)
• Copyright Now: Elvis Presley song publishers and trusts sue Anthropic over Claude lyrics training and outputs (October 26, 2026)
• NBC News: Elvis Presley's rights holders sue Anthropic, saying it trained AI on his music (October 25, 2026)
• The Guardian: Anthropic sued for allegedly using 274 Elvis Presley songs to train AI models (October 25, 2026)