Copyright Infringement Claims Unrelated to AI Learning
US artificial intelligence company Anthropic has once again stood in court on charges of large-scale music copyright infringement.
Global music publishers claim that Anthropic used illegal file-sharing technology to mass-collect music lyrics and sheet music, arguing this constitutes clear copyright infringement separate from AI learning.
This lawsuit was filed by music publishers including Universal Music Publishing Group and ABKCO Music in the US District Court for the Northern District of California. The defendants include not only the Anthropic corporation but also co-founders Dario Amodei and Benjamin Mann personally.
The core issue raised by the publishers is the method of data collection.
According to the complaint, plaintiffs claim that Anthropic used BitTorrent technology to mass-download copyrighted works including music lyrics and sheet music from illegal pirate libraries such as LibGen and PiLiMi. These materials were collected without proper licenses, and due to the nature of torrents, this is said to also entail acts of redistributing illegal copies.
Publishers view the materials secured this way as having been accumulated in a central text library and used throughout Anthropic's AI model training and service operations. In particular, this lawsuit takes issue not with what AI output, but with the fact that the process of securing source data itself at the prior stage was illegal.
The plaintiffs clearly distinguish this case from existing AI output copyright disputes. The argument is that acts of illegal downloading through BitTorrent are independent and intentional copyright infringement regardless of any AI learning purpose. Even if there was an AI learning purpose, the logic is that the illegal collection act itself cannot be justified.
This lawsuit also includes allegations of direct involvement by executives. According to the complaint, co-founder Benjamin Mann was directly involved in the torrent download process, and the allegation is raised that CEO Dario Amodei also knew of and approved the relevant acts. The plaintiff side cited court judgments mentioned in a separate copyright-related lawsuit as grounds for this claim.
Publishers are claiming that Anthropic's actions were intentional and caused difficult-to-recover damage to the music creation ecosystem and legitimate licensing market. Accordingly, they have requested the court issue a permanent injunction stopping copyright infringement acts along with statutory damages or actual damages and disgorgement of unjust enrichment, plus payment of attorney fees and litigation costs.
Meanwhile, Anthropic has not yet issued an official position on this lawsuit. However, evaluations are emerging that this case is likely to have considerable repercussions across the entire generative AI industry, as it is shifting the focus of the AI copyright debate from outputs to the method of data collection.
