Music publishers sue Amazon-backed AI platform for copyright infringement

Music publishers such as Universal Music Group Publishing (UMGP), Concord Music Group and ABKCO have sued an Amazon-backed artificial intelligence company over alleged copyright infringement.

The three companies filed a suit against Anthropic, an AI startup that was founded in 2021 and recently secured roughly $4billion (£3.29b) in investment from Amazon. The startup refers to itself as an “AI safety and research company” and raised $750million (£617.7m) prior to Amazon’s stake making it one of the fastest-growing AI companies.

The lawsuit – filed in a Nashville court on Wednesday (October 18) by UMG’s publishing company Universal Music Publishing Group, along with co-plaintiffs Concord Music Group and ABKCO – seeks potentially tens of millions of dollars in damages from Anthropic and its AI assistant service Claude (per Music Business Worldwide)

It claims that, “in the process of building and operating AI models, Anthropic unlawfully copies and disseminates vast amounts of copyrighted works — including the lyrics to myriad musical compositions owned or controlled by Publishers”.

“Publishers embrace innovation and recognise the great promise of AI when used ethically and responsibly,” the suit continued. “But Anthropic violates these principles on a systematic and widespread basis. Anthropic must abide by well-established copyright laws, just as countless other technology companies regularly do.”

The three publishing groups highlighted several instances in which Claude had allegedly infringed their works. They asked Claude to provide lyrics to songs such as Katy Perry‘s ‘Roar’ (owned by Conord), the service provided all of lyrics to the track. Other songs named in the suit – which the service did the same thing for – include Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive” (owned by Universal), and The Rolling Stones’ “You Can’t Always Get What You Want,” (owned by Abkco.)

Universal Music Publishing Group, Concord Music Group and ABKCO’s claims include direct copyright infringement, contributory infringement, vicarious infringement, and removal or alteration of copyright management information. The are seeking roughly $150,000 (£123,000) per work infringed.

Matthew J. Oppenheim, the attorney representing the publishers said in a statement: “The unauthorised use of copyrighted material is illegal and, in the case of copyrighted music lyrics, harms songwriters and music publishers.”

He added: “It is well established by copyright law that an entity cannot reproduce, distribute, and display someone else’s copyrighted works to build its own business unless it secures permission from rightsholders. Just like countless other technologies, AI companies must abide by the law.” (Per Rolling Stone)

Elsewhere,  the use of AI in creating music continues to split artists and fans, both Grimes and Liam Gallagher seem to be in favour of the prospect. This comes as the former gave permission for fans to use her voice in their own music with the help of AI, provided they share the royalties with her, and the latter praised an AI version of a ‘lost’ Oasis album as “mega”.

One of the most prolific artists to speak out against the method is Nick Cave, who previously described it as a “grotesque mockery of what it is to be human” and told platforms such as ChatGPT to “fuck off and leave songwriting alone”.

Others who have criticised it include Sting, who said AI “doesn’t impress” him and that songwriters will have to defend “our human capital against AI”, as well as Stereophonics frontman Kelly Jones, Ed Sheeran and Guns N’ Roses bassist Duff McKagan.

In other artificial intelligence news, last month the Council of Music Makers (CMM) published five fundamental rules that they want companies to embrace when it comes to developing music AI technologies.

These included respecting the personal data rights of music-makers, sharing the financial rewards of AI music fairly, and clearly labelling AI-generated works.

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