Seven plaintiffs filed a lawsuit against Anthropic PBC on October 23, 2026, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. In case 5:26-cv-12473, they allege that Anthropic used lyrics from 274 musical compositions associated with Elvis Presley to develop Claude and generated infringing material. The complaint seeks three separate amounts that add up to $48.635 million; they are requests, not an award.
What the complaint says Anthropic used
The complaint concerns compositions and lyrics, including “All Shook Up,” “Can’t Help Falling in Love,” “Don’t Be Cruel,” “A Little Less Conversation” and “Return To Sender.” The plaintiffs allege that lyrics were copied from online sources and text collections, used in developing Claude, and reproduced or adapted in its outputs. Several claims about the contents of particular datasets are pleaded on information and belief.
The complaint pleads three causes of action: direct copyright infringement; circumvention of technological protection measures under 17 U.S.C. § 1201; and removal or alteration of copyright management information under 17 U.S.C. § 1202. Copyright management information, or CMI, identifies a work or its rights-management details. These are the plaintiffs’ allegations, not court findings.
The pleaded subject is musical compositions and lyrics. The complaint does not allege that Anthropic trained Claude on Presley audio recordings or that Claude produced cloned audio.
Why the requested total is $48.635 million
The $41.1 million figure covers the copyright claim alone. The plaintiffs separately seek $685,000 under § 1201 and $6.85 million under § 1202. Adding all three requests gives $48,635,000.
| Claim | Amount requested | Calculation |
| Copyright infringement | $41,100,000 | 274 works × $150,000 per work |
| Circumvention of protection measures, § 1201 | $685,000 | 274 works × $2,500 per work |
| Removal or alteration of CMI, § 1202 | $6,850,000 | 274 works × $25,000 per work |
| Total requested | $48,635,000 | $41,100,000 + $685,000 + $6,850,000 |
The complaint also asks for an accounting of training data and scraping involving the works, an injunction, and impoundment or destruction of alleged unauthorized copies. Those requests include material in training datasets, internal repositories, model weights and server infrastructure.
Anthropic’s reported response
On October 26, 2026, DER SPIEGEL reported that Anthropic told The New York Times it disagrees with the allegations and intends to defend itself.
Sony y Warner demandan a Anthropic por el uso alegado de obras musicales en Claude
