Anthropic Reaches Agreement with Music Publishers in AI Copyright Dispute

The AI company will maintain guardrails to prevent its chatbot from reproducing song lyrics and allow publishers to address concerns about future outputs.

Anthropic has agreed to maintain existing measures that prevent its Claude chatbot from reproducing copyrighted song lyrics or creating derivative works based on them.
The agreement includes applying the same guardrails to future AI models and products developed by the company.
Music publishers, including Universal Music Group and ABKCO, filed the lawsuit in 2023, alleging that Anthropic’s AI was trained on lyrics from 500 songs without proper licensing.
The deal allows music publishers to notify Anthropic of any outputs that violate copyright, with the company required to investigate and respond promptly.
The broader question of whether training AI models on copyrighted material constitutes fair use remains unresolved, with court rulings on this issue expected in the coming months.

The Hollywood Reporter