Sony Music Publishing and Warner Chappell Music have sued Anthropic, the company behind Claude, in a complaint filed on Friday, August 28 in the US District Court for the Northern District of California.
The suit names the company alongside two individuals: co-founder and chief executive Dario Amodei, and co-founder Benjamin Mann. The complaint, obtained by Music Business Worldwide, accuses the company of intellectual property theft on a historic scale, calling the conduct "one of the largest and most blatant" of its kind.
The publishers say tens of thousands of their compositions were harvested, listing "Ain't No Mountain High Enough," "All I Want For Christmas Is You," "Eye Of The Tiger," "Here Comes Santa Claus" and "Paper Rings" among them. They allege the works were copied repeatedly, both as training inputs and in what the models produce. They are seeking statutory damages of up to $150,000 for each work willfully infringed, plus up to $25,000 for each alleged removal of copyright management information, which puts the theoretical exposure in the billions.
Anthropic was already defending three other publisher suits. Universal Music Publishing Group, Concord Music Group and ABKCO sued in Nashville in October 2023 over roughly 500 songs, in a case later transferred to California, and the same publishers filed again in January 2026 over more than 20,000 works, seeking over $3 billion. BMG brought a third case in March 2026 over 493 compositions, and Round Hill Music filed a fourth on August 17.
With Sony and Warner joining as plaintiffs, the publishing arms of all three major music companies are now litigating against the same defendant. The two are demanding a jury trial and are represented by Oppenheim + Zebrak, lead counsel in the Concord and Universal case, and by Pryor Cashman.
MusicSuey has followed the earlier cases, including Anthropic's move to have part of the publishers' lyrics case dismissed and Round Hill's billion-dollar filings against Suno and Anthropic. On the recordings side, Sony Music has its own suit against the AI startup Udio.
The facts
- Sony Music Publishing and Warner Chappell sued Anthropic on August 28
- The case was filed in the Northern District of California
- Dario Amodei and Benjamin Mann are named as individual defendants
- The publishers seek up to $150,000 per work willfully infringed
- Tens of thousands of compositions are named in the complaint
- All three major music publishers are now suing Anthropic
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