The owners of Elvis Presley’s intellectual property filed a federal copyright lawsuit against AI company Anthropic on Oct. 23, accusing the maker of the Claude models of using hundreds of the late singer’s recordings without authorization to train its artificial intelligence.
Claims and defendants
A unit of Authentic Brands Group, which controls much of the Elvis brand and portions of his music catalog, along with other entities that hold rights to Presley’s work, brought the action. The complaint, first reported by Billboard, says Anthropic infringed 274 copyrighted songs, including well-known hits such as Can’t Help Falling in Love, A Little Less Conversation and Don’t Be Cruel.
“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,” said Richard Busch, the lead attorney for the plaintiffs.
Busch added that the plaintiffs were “deeply protective of these iconic songs,” language included in the filing accompanying the lawsuit.
Context in broader AI litigation
The lawsuit joins a wave of legal actions by record companies and rights holders against AI developers over the use of copyrighted works in model training. Music companies including Universal Music Group and others have already sued multiple AI firms, arguing that ingesting large bodies of copyrighted material without licenses is unlawful. AI companies have defended their practices by invoking fair use; that argument is being tested in numerous pending cases nationwide.
- Number of songs cited: 274 Presley compositions named in the complaint.
- Lead plaintiff: an Authentic Brands Group unit that manages Elvis’s intellectual property.
- Defendant: Anthropic, maker of the Claude family of AI models.
The complaint seeks to enforce exclusive copyrights and to hold Anthropic accountable under federal copyright law. The filing adds one of the most recognizable individual artists to the roster of claimants pursuing legal challenges to how AI models are trained and commercialized.
Anthropic faces multiple lawsuits over training practices across the creative industries. The outcome of this litigation could contribute to legal precedent shaping the boundaries between copyright protections and AI training methods.
