The companies that control Elvis Presley's music rights have filed a copyright lawsuit against Anthropic, accusing the maker of the Claude chatbot of training its AI models on 274 of the singer's songs without permission or payment.
The lawsuit, filed on Friday, October 23, was brought by a subsidiary of Authentic Brands Group — the licensing company that controls much of Presley's intellectual property, including his name, image, and likeness rights — alongside other companies holding rights to his music catalog, according to Billboard and The New York Times. For more context on this story, see our ongoing AI news.
The Claims: 274 Songs, No License
The complaint alleges that Anthropic infringed copyrights covering 274 songs associated with Presley, including many of his most recognizable hits: "Can't Help Falling in Love," "All Shook Up," "Don't Be Cruel," "A Little Less Conversation," "Return to Sender," and "(You're the) Devil in Disguise."
According to the filing, Anthropic used the copyrighted compositions and lyrics to train its AI models without obtaining licenses from or paying the relevant rights holders. The plaintiffs further allege that the technology is capable of generating unauthorized versions of existing songs, extending the alleged harm beyond training data to the model's outputs.
The plaintiffs are pursuing statutory damages of up to $150,000 for each infringed work. Across 274 songs, that amounts to approximately $41.1 million — the figure cited in coverage by The New York Times and Billboard.
Claude Still Quotes the King, Plaintiffs Say
A central allegation is that Claude has continued reproducing copyrighted Presley material even after Anthropic introduced safeguards intended to stop the chatbot from generating existing song lyrics.
According to the lawsuit, when testers asked Claude to recreate Elvis songs "for a modern audience," the model produced material that closely resembled the original compositions. The plaintiffs argue this demonstrates both that the works were used in training and that current mitigations are inadequate to prevent ongoing infringement.
Richard Busch, lead attorney for the plaintiffs, said in a statement quoted by Billboard: "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."
Busch is a veteran of music's highest-profile AI-adjacent copyright battles. He previously represented the estate of Marvin Gaye in the landmark case against Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams over "Blurred Lines," which ended with a jury finding the 2013 hit infringed Gaye's "Got to Give It Up."
Anthropic's Position
Anthropic has disputed the claims. Reporting by The New York Times noted that the company disagrees with the lawsuit's allegations. In previous copyright cases, Anthropic's core legal defense has been that training AI models on copyrighted material can qualify as fair use under US law — an argument that remains untested at the Supreme Court level.
The company did not immediately respond to requests for broader comment on the Elvis case.
The Music Industry's Escalating Legal Campaign
The Elvis lawsuit is the latest escalation in a multi-year legal confrontation between the music industry and AI companies.
In October 2023, Universal Music Publishing Group, Concord Music Group, and ABKCO sued Anthropic, alleging that Claude reproduced copyrighted lyrics without authorization — citing examples involving songs by Katy Perry, Gloria Gaynor, and The Rolling Stones.
In August 2026, Sony Music Publishing and Warner Chappell Music filed their own lawsuit against Anthropic, accusing the company of using copyrighted lyrics and sheet music from artists including The Beatles, Taylor Swift, and Michael Jackson to train Claude.
AI music generators have faced parallel pressure. In September, singer Jason Isbell and other musicians sued Suno, alleging the platform enabled users to imitate their identities and musical styles without consent. Sony and Universal have also sued Suno directly over its training practices.
The dispute is not confined to the United States. In the UK, artists including Paul McCartney, Elton John, and Dua Lipa have campaigned for stronger legal protections against the unauthorized use of creative work in AI training, pressuring lawmakers as the government weighs changes to copyright law.
Why the Elvis Case Matters
The case is notable for several reasons. First, the plaintiff is not an individual artist but a major licensing corporation managing one of the most valuable catalogs in music history — a sign that institutional rights holders are willing to litigate rather than license.
Second, the alleged statutory damages of roughly $41.1 million are calculated from a well-defined set of 274 registered works, giving the court a concrete damages framework that is easier to adjudicate than diffuse claims over millions of unlabeled training files.
Third, the case adds to the accumulating legal risk around how frontier AI companies source training data. Whatever the outcome, the pattern is clear: as AI companies race to acquire licensed and unlicensed data alike, rightsholders across music, news, and publishing are responding with lawsuits that could reshape the economics of model training.
For now, the burden shifts to Anthropic to defend both its training practices and the effectiveness of the safeguards it has already deployed — this time with the King's catalog at the center of the dispute.
---
Stay Ahead of AIGet the latest AI news, analysis, and breakthroughs — all in one place.
Read more AI news →
