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Rights holders to Elvis Presley’s music have sued artificial intelligence company Anthropic, alleging it used his songs to train AI models without permission, according to reports by Billboard and Rolling Stone.
The lawsuit was filed on Friday and covers 274 Presley songs. Titles named in the complaint include “Can’t Help Falling in Love,” “A Little Less Conversation," and “Don’t Be Cruel.”
Authentic Brands Group, which owns the rights to Presley, filed the case together with other entities that also hold rights to the singer, whose hits include “Jailhouse Rock,” Billboard reported.
Lead attorney Richard Busch wrote in the filing that the plaintiffs seek to enforce their exclusive rights against a defendant that built its business model on copyright infringement “at a scale never seen before.” Busch also wrote that the plaintiffs are protective of the songs.
The complaint alleges that Anthropic’s AI model, Claude, has produced infringing output of copyrighted material from virtually every song in every catalog available on the internet, including Presley’s works. The plaintiffs also claim the problem continues after Anthropic introduced guardrails following earlier legal action.
According to the filing, when recently asked to recreate specific songs for a modern audience, Claude generated versions that stayed close to the originals in structure and hooks and included full sets of verses, choruses and bridges. The filing quotes Claude as saying the results go beyond being inspired by a song and into reproducing it.
Rolling Stone reported that the suit seeks $150,000 per infringed song.
The case follows other legal action against Anthropic over music. In August, music publisher Round Hill sued Suno and Anthropic, claiming mass copyright infringement. The suit alleges the AI companies used hundreds of the publisher’s songs to train their AI models without permission.
Universal Music Publishing, Abcko, Concord, and BMG also previously sued Anthropic, claiming it used lyrics to train Claude.
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