Elvis Presley may have left the building nearly 50 years ago, but his music is now at the center of a multimillion-dollar legal showdown over artificial intelligence.
Rights holders to hundreds of songs made famous by the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll have filed a federal copyright infringement lawsuit against AI giant Anthropic, accusing the company of using protected music and lyrics to train its Claude AI models without permission.
The lawsuit, filed Friday in federal court in California, alleges Anthropic unlawfully copied 274 songs associated with Presley, including iconic hits such as “Can’t Help Falling in Love,” “All Shook Up,” “Don’t Be Cruel,” “A Little Less Conversation” and “Return to Sender,” according to Billboard, which first reported the lawsuit.
The plaintiffs also allege that Claude continued generating material closely resembling copyrighted songs even after Anthropic introduced safeguards intended to prevent such outputs. According to the complaint, when prompted to recreate songs for a modern audience, Claude produced versions that retained elements of the originals, including their structure and recognizable hooks, despite changes to the lyrics.
The lawsuit, brought by a subsidiary of Authentic Brands Group and other music rights holders, seeks approximately $41.1 million in statutory copyright damages, with additional damages sought under other claims, NBC News reported.
Fox News Digital has reached out to Anthropic for comment on the lawsuit and its allegation but did not immediately hear back.
The legal fight comes as AI developers face mounting scrutiny over their use of copyrighted material to train increasingly powerful models, raising questions about intellectual property protections in the rapidly expanding industry.