Sony Music Publishing and Warner Chappell Music sued Anthropic on August 28, 2026, in a federal court in San Francisco. The music publishers accuse the company behind the chatbot Claude of systematic copyright infringement: it allegedly downloaded tens of thousands of song lyrics and sheet music illegally from file-sharing platforms to train its AI models.
Complaint Accuses Anthropic of Systematic Piracy
According to Music Business Worldwide, which first made the case public, the lawsuit was filed on Friday evening at the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. The complaint names not only Anthropic as the defendant but also the company founders Dario Amodei and Benjamin Mann personally. The music publishers accuse the company of having downloaded millions of book files and song lyrics via torrent over the years instead of acquiring licenses. The plaintiffs themselves describe it as one of the largest and most brazen ongoing thefts of intellectual property in history. Tens of thousands of compositions are affected. The plaintiffs are the music publishing divisions of Sony and Warner, which hold the rights to compositions and lyrics. The record labels, which distribute music recordings and have been involved in previous lawsuits against other AI providers, are not participating. For each intentional infringement, Sony and Warner are seeking damages of up to $150,000, and for each removed copyright notice, an additional up to $25,000. With tens of thousands of works, the calculated dispute value would be in the low to mid-billion range – the actual amount of damages will be determined by a court after the evidence is presented.
Third Major Music Publisher Files Lawsuit Within Months
This lawsuit is not the first of its kind against Anthropic. In January 2026, Concord Music Group and Universal Music Group sued the company for the illegal download of more than 20,000 songs. They demanded over three billion dollars in damages. The case is still pending in the same court in San Francisco. In September 2025, Anthropic also reached a settlement in the Bartz v. Anthropic case with a group of authors. The company paid $1.5 billion – the largest settlement to date in an AI copyright dispute. The court at that time clarified that training with copyrighted works may generally be permissible, but obtaining them through piracy platforms is not. With the new lawsuit from Sony Music Publishing and Warner Chappell, the publishing arms of all three major music companies are now suing Anthropic in parallel. Similar disputes are also ongoing against other AI providers: GEMA imposed a licensing obligation on the music service Suno in July 2026 before the Munich District Court for six works.
Anthropic Denies Allegations and Prepares for IPO
A spokesperson for Anthropic denied the allegations, stating that the company would vigorously defend itself in court, according to a statement to the media. Anthropic did not comment on the details of the procurement. The AI music services Suno and Udio have also been sued for similar allegations. The current lawsuit is part of a growing number of cases in which rights holders are legally examining the training data of large AI providers. The lawsuit comes at a sensitive time for Anthropic: the company is planning an IPO for October. Investors expect a valuation of at least two trillion dollars, according to a report by the Financial Times. Anthropic plans to submit the prospectus after September 7, with the listing expected in the fall. Unresolved billion-dollar risks from copyright lawsuits could play a role in the prospectus review, even if they do not necessarily delay an IPO. The Bartz settlement of $1.5 billion was managed alongside ongoing funding rounds. It remains unclear whether Anthropic will seek a settlement as in the Bartz case or push the case to a judgment. A date for the first hearing has not yet been announced.
