Major record labels and music industry organizations have filed an amicus brief supporting publishers in their copyright battle against AI company Anthropic, alleging unauthorized use of song lyrics in AI training.

Universal Music Publishing Group, Concord, and Abkco initially sued Anthropic in October 2023 for copyright infringement. The lawsuit claims Anthropic's AI chatbot Claude was trained on scraped song lyrics without proper licensing agreements and can reproduce copyrighted lyrics when prompted.

The publishers demonstrated that Claude can reproduce lyrics from songs like Katy Perry's "Roar," Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive," and The Rolling Stones' "You Can't Always Get What You Want" when prompted. The chatbot also returns song lyrics when asked to write themed content, such as reproducing "American Pie" lyrics when discussing Buddy Holly.

While Anthropic acknowledges training Claude on these lyrics, they claim it falls under 'fair use' and that any exact reproduction of lyrics is a technical bug rather than an intended feature. The company states they have implemented guardrails to prevent such reproduction.

The RIAA, Artist Rights Alliance, and Music Artists Coalition filed an amicus brief arguing that unlike other AI companies who have obtained proper licensing, Anthropic has refused to compensate rights holders. They compare Anthropic's defense to arguments used by Napster and Grokster, noting that addressing copyright infringement historically led to legitimate streaming services that properly compensate artists.

Publishers are seeking an injunction requiring Anthropic to:

• Maintain guardrails preventing AI models from generating copyrighted lyrics
• Stop using unauthorized lyrics in future AI model training

The case continues to be closely watched as it may set important precedents for AI training and copyright law in the music industry.

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