Artificial intelligence company Anthropic convinced a California federal judge
on Tuesday to reject a preliminary bid to block it from using lyrics owned by Univer
sal Music Group and other music publishers to train its AI-powered chatbot Claude.
U.S. District Judge Eumi Lee said that the publishers’ request was too broad and
that they failed to show Anthropic’s conduct caused them “irreparable harm.”
Spokespeople for the labels did not immediately respond to requests
for comment on the decision. An Anthropic spokesperson said the co
mpany was pleased that the court did not grant the publishers’ “disruptive and amorphous request.”
Music publishers UMG, Concord and sued Anthropic in 2023, alleging that it i
nfringed their copyrights in lyrics from at least 500 songs by musicians including
Beyoncé, the Rolling Stones and the Beach Boys.
The publishers claimed Anthropic used the lyrics without permission to train Claude to respond to human prompts.
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The lawsuit is one of several arguing that copyrighted works by authors, ne
ws outlets, visual artists and others have been misused without consent or payment to develop AI products.
Tech companies including OpenAI, Microsoft and Meta Platforms have said th
at their systems make “fair use” of copyrighted material under U.S. copyright law by
studying it to learn to create new, transformative content.
Fair use is likely to be the determinative question in the lawsuits, though Lee’s opinion did not specifically address the issue.
Lee rejected the publishers’ argument that Anthropic’s use of their lyrics ca
used them irreparable harm by diminishing their licensing market.
“Publishers are essentially asking the Court to define the contours of a licensing market for AI training where the threshold question of fair use remains unsettled,” Lee said.
