Elvis Presley's Licensing Company Sues Anthropic Over 274 Songs Allegedly Used to Train Claude, Guardian Reports
Bot Mutiny |
Summary
Authentic Brands Group, which owns Elvis Presley's music and likeness, has sued Anthropic over 274 songs it says were used to train Claude, the Guardian reports. The claims are allegations.
Authentic Brands Group, the licensing company that owns Elvis Presley's music and likeness, has sued Anthropic, alleging that the AI company used 274 Presley songs to train its Claude AI model without permission, the Guardian reported on October 25, 2026. According to the Guardian, the lawsuit was filed on the Friday before its report (October 23, 2026) and was first reported by Billboard. The claims are allegations in a complaint. The Guardian does not report any court ruling on them, and Anthropic has not been found liable in the Guardian's account.
What the lawsuit alleges
The Guardian reports that Authentic Brands Group accuses Anthropic of infringing the rights to 274 Presley songs. Three of them are: "Can't Help Falling in Love," "All Shook Up" and "A Little Less Conversation." The suit accuses Anthropic of using those songs to train its AI model, Claude. It also says that "from its inception, Anthropic's AI model, 'Claude,' has created infringing output of copyrighted material of virtually every song from every catalog available on the internet."
Lead attorney Richard Busch wrote in the lawsuit: "The Elvis plaintiffs bring this action to enforce these exclusive rights against the defendant that has built its entire business model based on copyright infringement at a scale never seen before."
Damages sought
The plaintiffs are seeking $150,000 per infringed track, which the Guardian puts at about $41m.
The guardrails argument
The complaint also addresses guardrails that, according to the lawsuit, Anthropic introduced to limit music output. The Guardian quotes the lawsuit as saying: "Even Anthropic's institution of guardrails (albeit ineffectively) to purportedly limit outputs which infringe upon music copyrights, after being caught, along with its knowledge that its guardrails were ineffective to stop creating outputs which infringed music copyrights, demonstrates that Anthropic knowingly engaged and continues to willfully engage in copyright infringement of others' musical works."
In other words, the plaintiffs argue that Anthropic introducing guardrails after being caught, together with its alleged knowledge that they were ineffective, shows it knowingly and willfully infringed. That is the plaintiffs' characterization. Whether a court accepts it is a separate question.
Other music copyright claims against AI companies
The Guardian notes that AI companies have already faced copyright claims from the Recording Industry Association of America and from music labels such as Sony, Universal and Warner Records. It describes the Presley case as one of the first major legal challenges brought directly by an artist's estate against an AI developer, and says the result could set a broader precedent for how AI companies are allowed to use existing music catalogues.
Bot Mutiny has also covered a separate case, in which music publishers including Concord Music Group filed for partial summary judgment against Anthropic in the Northern District of California. In that case the publishers say Anthropic copied lyrics to 499 works to train Claude. Those are also claims by the publishers, and our report on that filing did not describe a ruling.
What is not yet known
The Guardian's article does not include a response from Anthropic. It also does not say which court the Presley lawsuit was filed in. Bot Mutiny has not reviewed the complaint itself, so the quotations and figures attributed to the Guardian above are as it reported them. We will update coverage if Anthropic responds or the court record becomes available.