In a defining moment for publishers’ copyright claims for training AI models, Anthropic convinced a California federal judge to reject a preliminary bid to block the use of lyrics owned by the Universal Music Group. In 2023, the music publisher company UMG, along with Concord and ABKCO, sued the AI company Anthropic for using its music to train its later flagship chatbot Claude. Over 500 songs by musicians, including Beyonce, the Rolling Stones, and the Beach Boys, have allegedly been used by Anthropic to train Claude to respond to human prompts.
The music publishing company alleged that Anthropic often omits critical copyright management information, and hence, the artists are not compensated for their music being used to train AI chatbots. UMG stated
“There are already a number of music lyrics aggregators and websites that serve this same function, but those sites have properly licensed publishers’ copyrighted works to provide this service… Indeed, there is an existing market through which publishers license their copyrighted lyrics, ensuring that the creators of musical compositions are compensated and credited for such uses.”
‘Irreparable Harm’
On Tuesday, US District Judge Eumi Lee remarked that the music publisher’s request was too broad and that the company failed to prove that Anthropic caused them ‘irreparable harm’.
The spokesperson of the AI company responded to this judgment by saying that the company is pleased to know that the court didn’t grant the publisher’s ‘disruptive and amorphous request’. Meanwhile, UMG stated that
“They remain very confident in our case against Anthropic more broadly.”
Fair Use
Other than Anthropic, AI companies, including OpenAI, Meta, and Microsoft, stated that their systems make ‘fair use’ of copyright material under US Copyright law. The chatbots study the material to learn to create new and transformative content. Jurist Lee did not address the issue, but the interpretation of ‘fair use’ will be the determining question in the lawsuits. Lee remarked
“Publishers are essentially asking the Court to define the contours of a licensing market for AI training where the threshold question of fair use remains unsettled”.
“The court declines to award publishers the extraordinary relief of a preliminary injunction based on legal rights … that have not yet been established.”
Though the judgment has given an initial win to the AI company, it is yet to be seen how AI companies use the copyright material to train chatbots and how it is ‘fair use’ under US Copyright law. Additionally, the final judgment of this case will lead to the future use of copyright content for training other chatbots.
Recently, Anthropic secured $3.5 billion in a Series E funding round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners. This funded round is preceded by the AI company securing more than $1 billion in investment from Google.
