Elvis Presley catalog owners sue Anthropic alleging copyright infringement - LA Times

Elvis Presley during a 1972 performance. The rights holder to dozens of the late singer’s songs is suing AI giant Anthropic, accusing it of using Presley’s songs to train Claude without permission. (Associated Press) By James Rainey Staff Writer Follow Oct. 25, 2026 12:42 PM PT 6 3 min Click here to listen to this article Share via Close extra sharing options Email Facebook X LinkedIn Threads Reddit WhatsApp Copy Link URL Copied! Print 0:00 0:00 1x This is read by an automated voice. Please report any issues or inconsistencies here . See more from the L.A. Times in Google Search. Set us as preferred The owners of rights to much of Elvis Presley’s song catalog have sued Anthropic , claiming the artificial-intelligence giant used his songs without permission to train its online agent Claude . Partnerships that control 274 of Presley’s best-known songs — including “All Shook Up,” “Can’t Help Falling in Love,” “Don’t Be Cruel” and “Return To Sender” — said the San Francisco-based AI company had paid nothing for capturing the songs and using them to help improve Claude. “Defendant has built its entire business model based on copyright infringement at a scale never seen before,” the plaintiffs said in a lawsuit filed Friday in federal court in San Francisco. Advertisement The Elvis partnerships said that their collection includes “some of the most groundbreaking, revolutionary, influential, and enduring musical compositions in human history.” Hollywood Inc. Nicolas Cage says he won’t work with Amazon again over AI dispute Nicolas Cage, who recently starred in “Spider-Noir,” said he won’t work with Amazon again after a disagreement over an AI waiver. Oct. 10, 2026 Authentic Brands Group, which owns the rights to Presley, initiated the lawsuit along with other legal entities that also own the rights, according to the music industry publication Billboard. “We disagree with the claims and intend to defend this case fully,” an Anthropic spokesperson said in a statement Sunday. Advertisement The plaintiffs’ lawyers noted in their filing that at least a half dozen suits currently pending in federal court in San Francisco related to musical compositions being improperly used to train artificial intelligence. The lawyers for the Presley plaintiffs are seeking roughly $50 million in damages, along with reimbursement of court costs and attorneys fees. The suit contends that Anthropic was put on notice that it was improperly accessing copyrighted material, but continued with the practice. “Anthropic ran roughshod over the rights of countless creatives and rightsholders,” the lawsuit charged, “using their works without permission, removing identifying information from those works, and keeping ill-gotten gains for itself.” Pop & Hiss Elvis Presley Enterprises sues Chrysalis Music Group over publishing payments This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. Jan. 12, 2011 Anthropic stored Elvis’ songs “into a permanent, general-purpose central library intended to be retained indefinitely, from which subsets were selected and copied again to train the next generation of Claude models,” the lawsuit contends. Anthropic’s actions allow users to create derivative songs without paying the copyright holders, the lawsuit says. And the suit suggests that Claude, itself, recognized how these new versions “keep landing very close to the originals: same structure, same hooks reused with light rewording, and full sets of verses/choruses/bridges. That’s edging past ‘inspired by’ into reproducing the copyrighted song, even when the words are swapped out.” Advertisement The lawsuit claims that such unauthorized reuse “is destroying the value of these works in a matter of a few years with only profit as its motive.” More to Read SpaceX, Anthropic plan to share wealth with the public amid concern AI could trigger job losses Oct. 20, 2026 Why some musicians aren’t happy about labels signing AI deals with platforms Sept. 21, 2026 Lawsuit says Anthropic, OpenAI, SpaceXAI and Google made illegal agreement on AI slowdown Sept. 19, 2026