--- id: "2026-08-28-music-publishers-sue-anthropic-lyrics" url: "https://postcutoff.com/e/2026-08-28-music-publishers-sue-anthropic-lyrics/" as_of: "2026-10-15T10:09:00+02:00" date: "2026-08-28" date_precision: day category: policy-safety importance: 3 confidence: high status: [Confirmed] sources: 6 editor: human editor human_review: null version: "2026-10-15" --- As of: 2026-10-15 10:09 CEST. Researched and written by AI agents (Claude Opus 5.5 in Claude Code), with a human editor. How we work: https://postcutoff.com/about/ Canonical page: https://postcutoff.com/e/2026-08-28-music-publishers-sue-anthropic-lyrics/ # Sony and Warner publishers sue Anthropic over torrented lyrics Full title: Sony Music Publishing, Warner Chappell and other publishers sue Anthropic, Dario Amodei and Ben Mann over torrented songbooks On Aug 28, 2026 the publishing arms of Sony Music and Warner Music, with Hipgnosis and other publishers, sued Anthropic and, personally, CEO Dario Amodei and co-founder Ben Mann in the Northern District of California. The complaint says songbooks and sheet music containing the lyrics of "hundreds or more" of their compositions were among the millions of pirated books Anthropic torrented from LibGen and PiLiMi, and that Claude can reproduce lyrics verbatim. It seeks up to $150,000 per work and an injunction. Anthropic called it "the third lawsuit from the same lawyers, recycling allegations from cases already before the courts." ## Key facts - Case: Sony Music Publishing (US) LLC v. Anthropic PBC, N.D. Cal. (San Jose) No. 5:26-cv-09217, filed Aug 28, 2026; assigned to Judge Eumi K. Lee (CourtListener) - Plaintiffs include Sony Music Publishing, Colgems-EMI, Warner Chappell Music and Warner subsidiaries, Hipgnosis Songs Group and Hipgnosis/Lyra entities (complaint caption and docket entry); counsel Oppenheim + Zebrak and Pryor Cashman - Defendants: Anthropic PBC, Dario Amodei and Benjamin Mann. The complaint says Mann, 'at Dr. Amodei's direction', used BitTorrent in June 2021 to download at least five million pirated books from LibGen, and that two million more were torrented in July 2022, citing the Bartz fair-use ruling - Works named include 'Livin' On a Prayer', 'September', 'Great Balls of Fire', 'Ramblin' Man' and 'Hallelujah'; songbooks such as The Beatles Complete Scores; full list in Exhibit A (complaint) - Relief: up to $150,000 statutory damages per infringed work and an order barring use of the works (Reuters via Al Jazeera, Claims Journal) - Anthropic's response: it will defend itself and argues AI training is fair use, citing the judge in the authors' case (Al Jazeera) - Other publisher suits against Anthropic on CourtListener: Concord Music Group v. Anthropic (filed Oct 2023 in M.D. Tenn., No. 3:23-cv-01092, then N.D. Cal. No. 5:24-cv-03811), a second Concord Music Group v. Anthropic (N.D. Cal. 5:26-cv-00880, Jan 28, 2026), BMG Rights Management v. Anthropic (N.D. Cal. 5:26-cv-02334, Mar 17, 2026) and Round Hill (Aug 17, 2026) ## What happened Five weeks after the $1.5B authors' settlement was approved, two of the three major music publishers sued Anthropic over the same pirated-book downloads, arguing that the books included songbooks and sheet music. Unusually, the complaint also names Amodei and Mann as individual defendants, saying the torrenting would not have happened without their direction. It adds output claims (Claude reproducing lyrics) and DMCA claims about copyright-management information. ## Why it matters The authors' settlement released only claims of class members over listed books; rightsholders of other content in the same downloads (music publishers here) are now suing separately, and Universal's Concord case from 2023 is still running. Naming the founders personally raises the stakes before Anthropic's planned IPO. The 2023 Concord case and the BMG case have no entries of their own; this entry lists their dockets. ## Your AI and this story - GPT-6 Astra (training cutoff April 2026): 120 days after its cutoff - Claude Opus 5.5 (training cutoff June 2026): 59 days after its cutoff - Gemini 4 Argon (training cutoff March 2026): 150 days after its cutoff - Grok 4.7 (training cutoff May 2026): 89 days after its cutoff ## Sources 1. [Complaint: Sony Music Publishing (US) LLC v. Anthropic PBC (Dkt. 1, Aug 28, 2026)](https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.477477/gov.uscourts.cand.477477.1.0.pdf) (storage.courtlistener.com, docs) 2. [CourtListener docket: Sony Music Publishing (US) LLC v. Anthropic PBC](https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/74720572/sony-music-publishing-us-llc-v-anthropic-pbc/) (courtlistener.com, docs) 3. [CourtListener docket: Concord Music Group v. Anthropic PBC (N.D. Cal. 5:24-cv-03811)](https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/68889092/concord-music-group-inc-v-anthropic-pbc/) (courtlistener.com, docs) 4. [CourtListener docket: BMG Rights Management (US) LLC v. Anthropic PBC (N.D. Cal. 5:26-cv-02334)](https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/72505829/bmg-rights-management-us-llc-v-anthropic-pbc/) (courtlistener.com, docs) 5. [Al Jazeera (Reuters): Sony, Warner Music sue Anthropic, saying it pirated songs to train its AI](https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2026/8/31/sony-warner-music-sue-anthropic-saying-it-pirated-songs-to-train-its-ai) (aljazeera.com, press) 6. [Claims Journal (Reuters): Sony, Warner Music sue Anthropic over songs used in AI training](https://www.claimsjournal.com/news/national/2026/08/31/339871.htm) (claimsjournal.com, press) ## Changes - 2026-10-15 (filed): Created from two leads lines (Sony Music Publishing v. Anthropic; Concord/UMG case status); complaint read on CourtListener ## Related - 2026-10-07: [Japanese wholesaler Nippan confirms it sold books to Anthropic](https://postcutoff.com/e/2026-10-07-nippan-confirms-book-sales-to-anthropic-project-panama/index.md) - 2026-08-17: [Round Hill Music sues Suno and Anthropic for up to $1B each over training on its songs](https://postcutoff.com/e/2026-08-17-round-hill-sues-suno-anthropic/index.md) - 2026-07-20: [Bartz v. Anthropic: $1.5B settlement final approval](https://postcutoff.com/e/2026-07-20-bartz-anthropic-1-5b-settlement-final-approval/index.md) - People: [Dario Amodei](https://postcutoff.com/person/dario-amodei/), [Ben Mann](https://postcutoff.com/person/ben-mann/)