October 7, 2025

The legal drama between the music world and AI tech just got spicier! On Monday, U.S. District Judge Eumi Lee refused to shut down parts of a lawsuit against Anthropic, an AI company backed by Amazon and Google. The case? Music publishers Universal Music Group, Concord, and ABKCO are accusing Anthropic of allowing its chatbot, Claude, to show their copyrighted song lyrics without permission. Anthropic wanted to dodge these claims, but Judge Lee said no! The music giants can continue their fight, arguing that Anthropic helped users infringe copyrights by reproducing lyrics from over 500 songs. These songs include hits by stars like Beyonce, the Rolling Stones, and the Beach Boys. This lawsuit is part of a bigger battle involving big tech names like OpenAI, Microsoft, and Meta. They’re all tangled up with copyright holders over using songs and writings to train AI systems. Anthropic made headlines earlier by settling a $1.5 billion lawsuit with authors, proving how heated and costly these fights can be. Judge Lee’s decision focused on whether Anthropic’s chatbot showing lyrics counts as contributory or vicarious copyright infringement. The court thinks it’s possible Anthropic knew about users copying lyrics and may have even profited from it. This keeps the publishers’ case alive and kicking. The publishers had sued Anthropic in 2023, and after some back and forth, the court gave the publishers another chance to argue their case. This means the courtroom showdown is far from over, and the tech and music industries are watching closely. The lawsuit's official title is Concord Music Group Inc v. Anthropic PBC, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, case number 5:24-cv-03811.

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Tags: Anthropic, Copyright infringement, Music publishers, Ai training, Lawsuit, Claude chatbot,