Sony Music and Warner Chappell sue Anthropic
The publishers accuse the AI company and two co-founders of torrenting tens of thousands of works, and want up to $150,000 for each.
Sheet music and legal folders on a counsel table in an empty courtroom, an AI-generated illustration for this case.
Sony Music Publishing, Warner Chappell and other music publishers have sued Anthropic and co-founders Dario Amodei and Benjamin Mann in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, seeking up to $150,000 per work for tens of thousands of works.
At a glance
- Plaintiffs: Sony Music Publishing, Warner Chappell and other music publishers. Defendants: Anthropic, Dario Amodei, Benjamin Mann.
- Court: U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.
- Sought: up to $150,000 per work, plus up to $25,000 for each separate instance.
- Scope claimed: tens of thousands of copyrighted works.
- Backdrop: $1.5 billion in the Bartz case, and a $3 billion Concord and UMG suit filed in January 2026.
Sony Music Publishing, Warner Chappell and a group of other music publishers have taken Anthropic to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. Co-founders Dario Amodei and Benjamin Mann are named as defendants alongside the company. The publishers say tens of thousands of copyrighted works are at stake. TechCrunch reported the filing on August 29, 2026, saying the complaint landed late Friday.
The allegation: piracy, not licensing
The complaint describes a brazen campaign of illegally torrenting, scraping and downloading copyrighted works to train Claude. The publishers call the conduct blatant theft and flagrant piracy. They say the material came from millions of book copies containing lyrics and sheet music. The weight of the case rests on how the training data was obtained rather than on training itself.
The money
The publishers ask for up to $150,000 per work. On top of that they seek up to $25,000 for each separate instance of a further alleged violation. Multiply the first figure by tens of thousands of works and the arithmetic already lands in the billions. The available reporting does not state a single headline damages number.
A pattern of litigation
In January 2026, Concord Music Group and Universal Music Group filed a separate $3 billion case, handled by the same legal team. In Bartz v. Anthropic, the court held that using copyrighted works for training was lawful while acquiring them through piracy was not. Anthropic paid $1.5 billion in that matter. That split is precisely the opening the publishers are aiming at here.
Anthropic responds, and what is still unclear
Anthropic says it disagrees with the publishers’ claims and intends to defend itself robustly in court. A note on sourcing: of the two sources assigned to this story, only TechCrunch could be retrieved. The Verge article would not load before publication, so only a short excerpt from it was used. The full roster of plaintiffs, the docket number and the total amount in dispute are therefore not independently confirmed.
FAQ
Who is suing Anthropic over music copyrights?
Sony Music Publishing, Warner Chappell and other music publishers. They named the company along with co-founders Dario Amodei and Benjamin Mann as defendants.
How much are Sony Music and Warner Chappell asking for?
Up to $150,000 per work across tens of thousands of works, plus up to $25,000 for each separate instance of a further alleged violation. No total figure has been reported.
Has Anthropic lost a copyright case before?
In Bartz v. Anthropic the company paid $1.5 billion. The court found training on copyrighted works lawful, but obtaining them through piracy was not.
