BMG Sues Anthropic, Entering AI Copyright Battlefield: ‘Egregious Law-Breaking’ - Billboard
BMG filed its own copyright lawsuit against Anthropic on March 17, 2026, in California federal court, making it the third music publisher to separately sue the AI company over lyrics used to train Claude. Universal Music Publishing Group, Concord Music, and ABKCO have an ongoing case against Anthropic that began in 2023.
BMG, owned by German media group Bertelsmann, alleges Anthropic trained Claude on lyrics from its catalog — including Bruno Mars's "Uptown Funk," Ariana Grande's "7 Rings," The Rolling Stones' catalog, Justin Bieber, and 3 Doors Down's "Kryptonite" — obtained through unauthorized torrent sites. The complaint cites 493 examples of alleged copyright infringement. Statutory damages of up to $150,000 per work could total more than $70 million across the songs listed.
The lawsuit makes a dual infringement argument. On the input side, BMG claims Anthropic included copyrighted lyrics in Claude's training corpus, sourcing material from licensed lyric libraries like MusicMatch and LyricFind as well as sheet music books. On the output side, BMG alleges Claude reproduces substantial portions of lyrics when prompted — including, it claims, when users ask for "new" or "original" songs, and that Claude has produced mash-ups combining multiple BMG-owned compositions.
"Anthropic's practice of training AI models on copyrighted works sourced from unauthorized torrent sites, among other acts, stands in direct opposition to the standards required of any responsible participant in the AI community," BMG said in a statement.
BMG sent a cease-and-desist letter to Anthropic in December 2025. Anthropic did not respond, a BMG spokesperson told Billboard.
Anthropic has previously settled an author lawsuit over AI training for $1.5 billion. A federal judge found Anthropic liable for storing torrented books. Music publishers and record labels have since added piracy claims to their cases, viewing the ruling as an opening. Anthropic has argued AI training constitutes fair use — an unsettled legal question being litigated across dozens of cases.
https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/bmg-sues-anthropic-using-bruno-mars-rolling-stones-lyrics-ai-training-2026-03-18/
https://www.billboard.com/pro/bmg-ai-song-copyright-lawsuit-sues-claude-maker-anthropic/