Universal Music sues AI startup Anthropic for copyright infringement on lyrics

Universal Music Group has filed a lawsuit against startup Anthropic, accusing it of massive copyright infringement of song lyrics using artificial intelligence tools.

Here's What We Know

The lawsuit cites the songs "Roar" by Katy Perry and "I Will Survive" by Gloria Gaynor as examples. It is alleged that the chatbot Anthropic Claude generates lyrics similar to the original of these songs, infringing the rights of Universal Music and other publishers.

Universal Music thus accuses Anthropic of illegally mass copying and distributing copyrighted musical works.

Other music publishers such as Concord and ABKCO have also been named as plaintiffs.

Flashback

Anthropic is an AI startup founded in 2021 by former OpenAI employees. The company has raised $750 million in investment and is valued at $4.1 billion.

In May, Anthropic was one of four companies invited to a White House meeting to discuss responsible AI development with US Vice President Kamala Harris.

In July, Anthropic introduced Claude, a chatbot capable of processing up to 75,000 words. By comparison, OpenAI's ChatGPT can handle about 3,000 words.

Source: NBC