Elvis Presley rights holders sue Anthropic over Claude training on songs
Companies holding rights to 274 Elvis Presley songs have sued AI developer Anthropic, alleging its Claude tool was trained on the music without authorization. Anthropic has denied the claim.
The companies that control the rights to 274 Elvis Presley songs, including «Don't Be Cruel» and «All Shook Up», have filed a lawsuit against AI developer Anthropic. They allege the company used the recordings without permission to train its AI tool, Claude. Anthropic has denied the claim.
The lawsuit centers on the use of copyrighted music in the data used to build large AI models. Rights holders argue that songs protected by copyright were ingested by Claude during training without a license, depriving them of compensation and control over how their catalog is used. The complaint frames the alleged use as illegal rather than as a matter of fair use or an open licensing arrangement.
Anthropic, one of the most prominent developers of generative AI systems, disputed the allegations. The company rejected the claim that Claude was trained on the songs unlawfully, and the case now moves forward with both sides setting out opposing positions on how the training data was assembled.
The dispute is part of a broader wave of legal challenges from creators and rights holders who say AI companies have trained their systems on copyrighted books, music, images and other works. Such cases have raised questions about whether training on protected material qualifies as permitted use, and how artists and estates should be compensated if it does not. Music has been an especially contested area, because catalogs of recorded songs and their underlying compositions often involve multiple owners and licensing arrangements.
The Presley catalog is among the most valuable in popular music, and its rights holders have a long record of defending the estate's commercial interests. Elvis Presley, who recorded hits in the 1950s and remains one of the most influential figures in American music, has continued to generate licensing revenue for decades after his death in 1977. Rights holders bringing the suit say the use of his recordings in AI training threatens that value and sets a precedent for how other catalogs could be exploited.
The case is likely to test how existing copyright law applies to AI training at a time when courts across the United States are still working through similar disputes. Any ruling could influence licensing practices across the technology and music industries, as developers weigh whether to negotiate deals with rights holders or defend training on publicly available material. For now, the complaint and Anthropic's denial set the terms of a dispute that is expected to draw close attention from both technology companies and the music business.
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