AI news · Anthropic · music lawsuit
Elvis Presley’s music owners sue Anthropic over 274 songs
The owners of Presley’s catalogue say Anthropic trained its AI on 274 of his songs without a licence, and seek $41 million.
A $41 million claim over 274 songs reached Anthropic on 23 October 2026. The firms holding Elvis Presley’s catalogue say the Claude maker used those songs to train its AI without asking, Engadget reports. The complaint adds two more charges: that Anthropic got past the files’ copy locks and wiped the ownership details embedded in them. Authentic Brands Group and Raleigh Music Publishing are among those suing.
The claim comes to about $150,000 a song, as the headline of Yahoo Finance’s report puts it. The suit was filed in the federal court for the Northern District of California, days before Anthropic’s public IPO filing.
Anthropic rejects the claims and plans a full defence, it told Engadget; in earlier cases it has called training on lyrics fair use. Richard Busch leads for the plaintiffs, as he does in Reservoir Media’s suits against Anthropic and Suno filed a week earlier, Music Ally notes. We covered that case in Reservoir’s suits against Suno and Anthropic.
Music for ads has a licensed route. Our list of AI voiceover tools for ads, checked 24 October 2026, records that Artlist’s terms (section 14) assign you its rights in the output of its voice and music models.
This suit targets the songs a model was trained on, and an assignment like Artlist’s section 14 passes on only the vendor’s own rights in the output, so it settles who owns an ad’s AI track and says nothing about the songs behind the model.
Sources
- Engadget: Elvis Presley’s estate is suing Anthropic over copyright infringement. Checked
- Yahoo Finance: Elvis Presley’s estate wants $150K per song from Anthropic as the AI giant approaches its blockbuster $2 trillion IPO. Checked
- Music Ally: Your AI’s nothin’ but a hound dog... Elvis Presley IP owner sues Anthropic. Checked
Alexandre S.
Alexandre S. is a creative ad strategist and copywriter with ten years' experience in digital marketing across multiple channels.