Elvis Presley Songs at Centre of $41m AI Lawsuit
Rights holders of 274 Elvis Presley songs are suing AI company Anthropic for $41.1 million over alleged copyright infringement involving Claude.
Hundreds of songs made famous by Elvis Presley are at the centre of a $41.1 million copyright lawsuit against artificial intelligence company Anthropic, following allegations that the music was used without permission to train its Claude AI assistant.
The legal action was filed in California on 23 October 2026 by rights holders associated with Presley's music catalogue, including Authentic Brands Group and music publishing companies.
The complaint identifies 274 copyrighted musical works, including Can't Help Falling in Love, Don't Be Cruel and Farther Along, with the claimants alleging that their lyrics were copied and used to develop Anthropic's technology without obtaining the necessary licences.
What is Anthropic accused of doing?
The lawsuit alleges that Anthropic obtained copyrighted song lyrics from online sources, assembled them into training materials and used them to develop Claude, the company's artificial intelligence assistant.
The rights holders also claim that Claude has produced material resembling protected songs, sometimes preserving recognisable lyrical structures and other elements while altering parts of the original wording.
They argue that this amounts to unauthorised copying and the creation of derivative works, meaning new material based on existing copyrighted compositions.
The complaint seeks statutory damages of $150,000 for each of the 274 works, giving a total of $41.1 million, alongside other legal remedies.
These allegations have not been proven in court. Anthropic disputes the claims and has indicated that it intends to defend the lawsuit.
Why does the case matter for musicians?
The dispute concerns copyrighted musical compositions and lyrics rather than simply the original sound recordings.
Presley remains one of the world's most recognisable recording artists, but many of the songs he performed were written by other composers whose work is protected separately from the recordings themselves.
The case therefore raises questions about the rights of songwriters and publishers when their music is used to develop AI systems.
Generative AI models learn patterns from large collections of material and can subsequently produce new text, images or other content. The legal disagreement centres on whether copyrighted work can be used during that process without permission or compensation.
Music publishers have already brought other legal challenges against AI developers, with courts continuing to consider how existing copyright law applies to this technology.
For artists and the people who own their songs, the outcome could influence future licensing arrangements and whether AI companies must obtain permission to use protected compositions.
The lawsuit is at an early stage, with no ruling yet on whether Anthropic infringed the copyrights identified in the complaint.
