Universal Music sues Anthropic over AI-generated lyrics

Universal Music has filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against artificial intelligence start-up Anthropic, as the world’s largest music group battles against chatbots that churn out its artists’ lyrics.

Universal and two other music companies allege that Anthropic scrapes their songs without permission and uses them to generate “identical or nearly identical copies of those lyrics” via Claude, its rival to ChatGPT.

When Claude is asked for lyrics to the song “I Will Survive” by Gloria Gaynor, for example, it responds with “a nearly word-for-word copy of those lyrics”, Universal, Concord and ABKCO said in a filing with a US court in Nashville, Tennessee.

“This copyrighted material is not free for the taking simply because it can be found on the internet,” the music companies said, while claiming that Anthropic had “never even attempted” to license their copyrighted work.

Anthropic did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The lawsuit comes as the music industry is grappling with the rise of AI technology that can produce “deepfake” songs that mimic the voices, lyrics or sound of established musicians. The issue drew attention earlier this year after an AI-produced song that mimicked the voices of Drake and The Weeknd spread online. 

Anthropic, a leading AI start-up, was founded in 2021 by a group of researchers who left Microsoft-backed OpenAI over a dispute over the company’s direction. It has drawn investments from Amazon and Google. 

In addition to regurgitating lyrics, Claude responded to prompts asking for writing in the style of popular musicians with unlicensed lyrics, the music companies alleged. “When we asked the AI model to write a piece of short fiction in the style of Louis Armstrong, it uses the lyrics for ‘What a Wonderful World’,” the companies said in the filing.

The concern over AI technology has echoes of the music industry’s copyright battles in the 2000s against new technology services including Napster, which enabled pirating of music. 

Universal, home to Taylor Swift and Billie Eilish, earlier on Wednesday announced a partnership with music platform BandLab to approach copyrights “ethically” for use in AI, with proper copyrights and permission.

Universal is separately working with Google to license its artists’ voices and melodies to be used in AI-generated songs, the Financial Times reported in August.

“Publishers embrace innovation and recognise the great promise of AI when used ethically and responsibly. But Anthropic violates these principles on a systematic and widespread basis,” the music groups said in Wednesday’s lawsuit.

Universal earlier this year asked Spotify and other streaming services to cut off access to its music catalogue for developers using it to train AI technology.