The owners of Elvis Presley's music catalog have filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Anthropic, accusing the maker of the Claude chatbot of using 274 of the late singer's songs to train its AI models without permission — and seeking damages that could total roughly $41.1 million.
Court documents were submitted on October 23 by a division of Authentic Brands Group, the brand company that controls much of Presley's intellectual property, including his name, image and likeness, alongside other enterprises holding rights to his music. The lawsuit was first reported by The New York Times and has since drawn coverage from The Guardian, the BBC and outlets worldwide. For more context on this story, see our ongoing latest AI developments.
274 Songs, From "Don't Be Cruel" to "Return to Sender"
The complaint centers on 274 Presley compositions and recordings, among them some of the most recognizable songs in American music: "Can't Help Falling in Love," "Don't Be Cruel," "(You're the) Devil in Disguise" and "Return to Sender."
According to the filing, Anthropic used the copyrighted works to train its Claude models without a license. The plaintiffs are seeking statutory damages of up to $150,000 per infringed work — which aggregates to approximately $41.1 million across the 274 songs — as well as a permanent injunction barring Anthropic from using Presley's catalog.
Under the U.S. Copyright Act, statutory damages for infringement range from $750 to $30,000 per work, with courts empowered to award up to $150,000 per work when infringement is found to be willful. The $150,000-per-work figure cited in the complaint therefore represents the top of the statutory range — an opening position that assumes willful conduct, which Anthropic would be expected to contest.
"Infringing Copyrights at an Unfathomable Scale"
The lawsuit uses pointed language about Anthropic's business. The company, it argues, has "built its entire business model on infringing copyrights at an unfathomable scale."
Attorney Richard Busch, representing the plaintiffs, said in court documents that the Elvis plaintiffs bring the 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."
"The Elvis Plaintiffs are deeply protective of these iconic songs," Busch added.
The complaint also describes what the plaintiffs say happened when users asked Claude to recreate Presley's music. According to excerpts quoted in the filing, the model's outputs "keep landing very close to the originals: same structure, same hooks reused with light rewording, and full sets of verses/choruses/bridges."
In one cited example, when Claude was asked to adapt Presley's music "for a modern audience," the lawsuit alleges the model produced material that closely matched the original melodies rather than transforming them. "That's edging past 'inspired by' into reproducing the copyrighted song, even when the words are swapped out," the filing argues.
Anthropic's Response
Anthropic pushed back quickly. "We disagree with the claims and intend to defend this case fully," a company spokesperson said in a statement reported by multiple outlets.
The company has previously maintained that training AI models on copyrighted content can qualify as fair use under U.S. copyright law — the same legal theory at the heart of Anthropic's defense in earlier copyright litigation brought by authors.
The fair use question is far from settled. Courts have yet to issue a definitive ruling on whether training generative AI models on copyrighted works without a license is transformative or infringing, and outcomes have varied at the preliminary stages of the cases filed so far.
Why the Elvis Case Matters for the AI Industry
The Presley lawsuit is the latest flashpoint in a broader wave of copyright litigation targeting AI developers over their training data practices. Authors, news organizations, visual artists and musicians have all filed suits against major AI companies in recent years, seeking damages and, in some cases, the destruction of models trained on their work.
The Elvis case stands out for three reasons:
1. Statutory damages scale. With 274 works at stake and up to $150,000 per work available, the case illustrates how quickly damages can compound when plaintiffs identify large catalogs of infringed material.
2. Output-based evidence. The complaint leans heavily on alleged model outputs — Claude's near-matches to original melodies — rather than training data alone, a strategy that could shape how future AI copyright cases are argued.
3. Estate power. Authentic Brands Group is one of the most aggressive enforcers of celebrity intellectual property in the world, and the case signals that iconic catalogs and their rights holders intend to be full participants in shaping AI licensing norms.
For AI companies, the message is becoming harder to ignore: the cost of training on unlicensed music, books and images is no longer theoretical. It is now being measured in nine-figure damage claims and existential questions about which training practices courts will ultimately tolerate.
A favorable outcome for the plaintiffs could accelerate the shift toward licensed training data across the music industry — and raise the price of building frontier models. For now, Anthropic will defend the case on fair use grounds, in what is likely to be one of the most closely watched AI copyright battles of the coming year.
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