Music Publishers Reach Agreement with Anthropic Over AI Training Lyrics

A group of prominent music publishers has settled with Anthropic regarding the use of song lyrics for training its AI system, addressing aspects of an ongoing preliminary injunction.

U.S. District Judge Eumi Lee approved an agreement that requires Anthropic to uphold existing safeguards, ensuring that its Claude AI chatbot does not provide lyrics from songs owned by the publishers or generate new lyrics derived from copyrighted material.

In a statement, Anthropic emphasized that Claude “isn’t designed for copyright infringement, and we have multiple processes in place to prevent such violations.” The company added, “Our choice to enter this stipulation aligns with our priorities. We look forward to demonstrating that, in accordance with current copyright law, using potentially copyrighted material to train generative AI models constitutes fair use.”

Universal Music Group, Concord Music Group, and ABKCO, among others, filed a lawsuit against Anthropic in federal court in Tennessee in 2023, alleging copyright infringement for training its AI on lyrics from over 500 songs by artists like Katy Perry, the Rolling Stones, and Beyoncé. For instance, when prompted for the lyrics to Perry’s “Roar,” owned by Concord, Claude reportedly provided a nearly identical version of the song’s lyrics, as stated in the complaint.

Central to the lawsuit were claims that Anthropic’s actions undermine an existing market by using lyrics without permission or compensation. The publishers highlighted licensed music lyric aggregators and websites as examples of compliant entities.

This lawsuit represents the first legal challenge from a music publisher against an AI company regarding the use of lyrics in a large language model.

According to the agreement, Anthropic will implement already established safeguards in the training of new AI systems. The deal also allows music publishers to intervene if these safeguards fail to function as intended.

“Publishers may notify Anthropic in writing if its safeguards are not effectively preventing the output that reproduces, distributes, or displays, in whole or in part, the lyrics to compositions owned or controlled by Publishers, or creates derivative works based on those compositions,” the filing states. “Anthropic will respond promptly and conduct an investigation into these claims, with Publishers cooperating in good faith.”

Anthropic has asserted in court documents that the current safeguards make it improbable for any future user to prompt Claude to produce significant portions of the contested works. These safeguards include “a range of technical and other measures—at all levels in the development lifecycle—that aim to prevent users from simply prompting Claude to reproduce training data,” according to a company spokesperson.

A court ruling is anticipated in the coming months regarding whether to impose a preliminary injunction that would prevent Anthropic from training future models on lyrics owned by the publishers.

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This paraphrased content maintains the original context while emphasizing key points relevant to business leaders in the film and television entertainment industry.

Person

Eumi Lee, Katy Perry, the Rolling Stones, Beyoncé

Company Names

Anthropic, Amazon, Universal Music Group, Concord Music Group, ABKCO

Titles

Roar

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