BMG sues Anthropic for using copyrighted song lyrics in AI training
BMG Rights Management sued Anthropic in California federal court, alleging the AI company used copyrighted song lyrics from artists including Bruno Mars, the Rolling Stones, and Justin Bieber to train its Claude chatbot without authorization. BMG claims Anthropic used automated scraping of public websites and pirate libraries since its 2021 founding and ignored a cease-and-desist letter in December 2025.
What happened
BMG Rights Management filed a lawsuit in California federal court on March 18, 2026, alleging that Anthropic used copyrighted song lyrics without authorization to train Claude, its large language model chatbot.
BMG claims Anthropic used automated scraping tools to copy lyrics from public websites and online pirate libraries from the company's founding in 2021. The complaint names songs including 'Uptown Funk' by Bruno Mars, 'You Can't Always Get What You Want' by the Rolling Stones, and tracks by Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande, and Louis Armstrong.
BMG states that Anthropic did not respond to a cease-and-desist letter sent in December 2025 or engage in licensing discussions. The complaint alleges Anthropic is secondarily liable for facilitating, encouraging, and profiting from copyright infringement by its licensees and users.
Reported impact
BMG claims Anthropic's actions infringe hundreds of copyrights held by songwriters ranging from Grammy-winning stars to emerging artists.
Index analysis
BMG presented evidence that Claude has supplied users with all or significant portions of chart-topping songs, arguing this demonstrates that Anthropic trained its models on BMG-managed music.
Governance controls
BMG argues in the complaint that 'generations of inventors have brought revolutionary new products to market while complying with copyright law' and that Anthropic's rapid development does not excuse the alleged violations.
Classification
Sources and evidence
Sources not yet published
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