Sony Music Publishing, Warner Chappell and other music publishers have taken legal action against Anthropic, accusing the AI lab of a “brazen campaign” of illegally downloading and using copyrighted works to train its AI model, Claude.

Anthropic’s lawyers push back, stating, “We disagree with the publishers’ claims and we intend to defend ourselves robustly in court.”

It’s not Anthropic’s first rodeo when it comes to legal battles over intellectual property. The same legal team representing Concord Music Group and Universal Music Group in a January case also led the Bartz v. Anthropic litigation, which saw Anthropic ordered to pay $1.5 billion. This latest lawsuit adds a new layer, alleging illegal torrenting of millions of books, including those with lyrics and sheet music.

This isn’t just about music. As AI becomes more sophisticated, the lines between legal use and exploitation of copyrighted material could blur, raising questions about the future of content creation and ownership.