Sony Music and Warner sue Anthropic for 'illegally torrenting' songs to train Claude AI models

Sony Music Publishing, Warner Chappell Music and 35 affiliated publishers filed complaints in a California court on August 29 accusing Anthropic and co-founders Dario Amodei and Benjamin Mann of "illegally torrenting, scraping and downloading copyrighted works on a massive scale" to train its Claude AI models. The plaintiffs are seeking an injunction and statutory damages, while Anthropic said it "disagrees with the publishers' claims" and will defend itself robustly. The lawsuit adds to legal pressures on Anthropic as it reportedly eyes an IPO that investors have discussed valuing at up to US$2 trillion.