Elvis Presley vs. Artificial Intelligence: Heirs of the King of Rock 'n' Roll Demand Nearly $50 Million

The lawsuit was filed on October 23 in the federal court for the Northern District of California. Among the plaintiffs is Authentic Brands Group, which manages a significant portion of Elvis Presley's intellectual property, as well as other copyright holders of his works. According to Billboard, the claims concern 274 songs by the famous performer, which the plaintiffs allege were used to train neural networks without the permission of the rights holders and without compensation. The list of works includes hits such as Can't Help Falling in Love, Don't Be Cruel, All Shook Up, A Little Less Conversation, and Return to Sender. Representatives of the rights holders claim that Anthropic not only used copyrighted materials in developing its models but also retained copies of them for further training of new versions of Claude. Moreover, according to the lawsuit, the artificial intelligence is capable of generating lyrics that closely reproduce the original compositions. In particular, when asked to adapt well-known songs for a modern audience, Claude allegedly preserved their structure, characteristic musical and lyrical elements, as well as the sequence of verses and choruses. The plaintiffs believe that such results go beyond creative inspiration and constitute a violation of copyright. The rights holders' attorney, Richard Bush, stated that this is about protecting a unique musical heritage from illegal commercial use. According to him, the scale of the alleged copyright violations in the artificial intelligence industry is unprecedented. For each of the 274 compositions, the plaintiffs demand $150,000 in compensation. Thus, this part of the claims amounts to $41.1 million. Considering additional demands, the total reaches approximately $48.6 million. Anthropic rejects the accusations. Company representatives stated that they disagree with the claims and intend to defend their position in court. This is far from the first legal conflict for Claude's developer with the music industry. Previously, claims were made against Anthropic by Universal Music Publishing Group, Concord Music Group, ABKCO, Sony Music Publishing, and Warner Chappell Music. The companies also accused the developer of using copyrighted song lyrics to train neural networks. The new trial could set an important precedent in the confrontation between the music industry and artificial intelligence developers. At the heart of the dispute is the question of whether technology companies have the right to use others' works to train commercial AI systems without the consent of the authors and rights holders. There is no definitive answer yet. However, the legacy of Elvis Presley, nearly half a century after the singer's death, has once again found itself at the center of a high-profile conflict — this time not musical, but technological.