Anthropic Faces Fair Use Hearing in Music Publishers' Copyright Case

US District Judge Eumi Lee will hear arguments Wednesday on Anthropic's fair use defense in a copyright lawsuit brought by music publishers including Universal Music Group, Reuters reports. The publishers allege Anthropic infringed copyrights by using song lyrics to train Claude.

Universal Music Group, Concord and ABKCO filed the case in 2023. It covers hundreds of songs by artists including Beyoncé, the Rolling Stones and the Beach Boys.

Anthropic argues that training Claude transforms the lyrics by using them to teach the model about human language. The publishers contend that Claude can generate new lyrics that compete with their copyrighted works.

Two other federal judges in Northern California have reached different conclusions about fair use in AI training cases. One sided with Anthropic over its use of books, while another ruled for Meta but said AI training would not qualify as fair use in many circumstances.