Elvis Presley Rights Holders Sue Anthropic Over 274 Songs

Caption: Elvis Presley in a 1957 publicity photograph promoting the film Jailhouse Rock. Credit: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer / Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

The owners of rights to 274 Elvis Presley songs have sued Anthropic, alleging the company used the compositions to develop its Claude artificial-intelligence models without obtaining permission or paying licensing fees. Filed October 23 in San Francisco federal court, the case reaches across some of Presley’s most recognizable recordings.

The filing names songs including “Can’t Help Falling in Love,” “All Shook Up” and “Don’t Be Cruel.” Anthropic disputes the allegations and says it intends to defend itself fully.

Why these songs are still valuable

Presley’s recordings remain closely associated with his voice and public image, but copyright in musical compositions is also a separate economic asset. Rights holders can license compositions for recordings, film, performances and other uses even decades after an artist’s death.

Authentic Brands Group, which controls rights associated with Presley’s name and likeness, joined other holders of music rights in the suit. The named works encompass a catalog that has continued generating licensing value long after Presley died in 1977.

The lawsuit therefore does not simply ask whether listeners can hear familiar songs on a new platform. It asks whether an AI developer needed licenses for copyrighted material it allegedly copied during training, and whether the outputs of the resulting system infringe those rights.

The alleged copying went beyond training

According to the complaint described by Pitchfork and the Los Angeles Times, the plaintiffs say Anthropic stored copyrighted material in a lasting collection and reused it to train later model generations. They also allege the system can generate derivative material that stays close to original song structures, hooks or arrangements.

The allegations join other disputes over how artificial-intelligence companies obtain and use copyrighted songs, books and other material to develop their models.

Anthropic’s response matters. A company representative told the Los Angeles Times that Anthropic disagrees with the claims and plans to defend the case fully.

The rights behind the lawsuit

The lawsuit concerns copyrights in songs, a separate legal interest from the right to use Presley’s name or likeness. Authentic Brands Group is associated with his commercial identity, while other plaintiffs assert rights in the compositions named in the complaint.

The Presley plaintiffs say the problem continues even after Anthropic implemented safeguards responding to earlier copyright complaints. According to the lawsuit, the model could still generate material echoing structures and lyric arrangements of protected songs when asked to update older songs for a modern audience. That allegation could become an important evidentiary question because it concerns outputs that users receive, not solely unseen training data. The company disputes the premise and has not been found liable in this case.

A familiar legacy in a new dispute

The case puts music associated with the early rock-and-roll era at the center of one of the newest fights in technology. It also carries an unusual crossover: a catalog known across generations is being defended against software that can produce new text and other content in seconds.

Anthropic says it disputes the allegations and plans to defend the case.

References: Elvis Presley Catalog Owners Sue AI Company Anthropic for Copyright Infringement | Elvis Presley rights holder sues Anthropic, says Claude trained on unauthorized songs