Sony Music Publishing, Warner Chappell Music and affiliated publishers filed a lawsuit against Anthropic and co-founders Dario Amodei and Benjamin Mann on August 28, 2026, in federal court in Northern California. The complaint alleges that copyrighted compositions were acquired through unauthorized downloading and scraping, copied for training Anthropic’s Claude models and reproduced in generated responses. Works cited include “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” and “Eye of the Tiger.” The publishers also allege that pirated books containing lyrics and sheet music formed part of the material acquired. These are allegations, not findings of liability. Read the complaint.

The lawsuit highlights how music-rights disputes extend beyond AI song generators to general-purpose chatbots. For publishers and songwriters, the commercial issue is whether AI companies must obtain permission and pay for uses of protected material in their products. The case also separates questions about how training material was obtained from questions about its subsequent use and reproduction—issues that should not be treated as one automatic legal conclusion. Anthropic disputes the publishers’ claims and says it will defend itself in court, according to The Guardian. The filing itself does not resolve those questions or establish compensation owed to songwriters.