BMG Sues Anthropic Over Alleged Use of Song Lyrics in AI Training - PYMNTS.com
BMG Rights Management has sued Anthropic in California federal court, alleging the company used copyrighted song lyrics without authorization to train its AI systems.
BMG Rights Management has sued Anthropic in California federal court, alleging the company used copyrighted song lyrics without authorization to train its AI systems. The lawsuit, filed Tuesday, claims Anthropic copied and reproduced lyrics from songs by the Rolling Stones, Bruno Mars, Ariana Grande, and other prominent artists — citing 493 specific instances of alleged copyright infringement.
BMG, owned by German media group Bertelsmann, was direct about its allegations. "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," the company said in a statement.
The lawsuit adds to a deepening pattern of copyright litigation against AI companies. Anthropic settled a separate case brought by a group of authors for $1.5 billion last September. A 2023 lawsuit filed by Universal Music Group and other music publishers against Anthropic over song lyrics remains ongoing. This is the first major music publishing company to file its own suit.
The damages exposure is significant. Under U.S. copyright law, statutory damages range from hundreds of dollars to $150,000 per work if infringement is found to be willful. With 493 cited instances, the maximum statutory exposure alone exceeds $73 million — before any accounting of actual damages or profits attributable to the infringement. The reference to torrent sites as a data source, if proven, strengthens the argument for willfulness.
The timing is not neutral. Anthropic is already fighting the Pentagon designation that cut off government contracts, facing an uncertain injunction hearing next Tuesday, and dealing with the revenue collapse from commercial customers renegotiating or walking away. A copyright lawsuit of this size adds another dimension to a company whose financial position has shifted dramatically in three weeks.
BMG's specific theory — that lyrics reproduced verbatim in training data constitute infringement, not fair use — will be tested alongside dozens of other cases working through U.S. courts in 2026. Courts are expected to issue key rulings this year on whether AI training constitutes transformative fair use. The music industry cases may move faster than most because they involve specific, documented instances of reproduction rather than statistical patterns across a large corpus.
Anthropic did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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