Universal Music Group and other music publishers have secured a significant development in their copyright battle with artificial intelligence company Anthropic, as the court approves protective measures or “guardrails” for AI-generated song lyrics.
UMG, along with other publishers including Concord Music Group and ABKCO, sued Anthropic in 2023, alleging copyright infringement.
The group claimed that Anthropic trained its AI system Claude on lyrics from at least 500 songs by major artists, including Katy Perry, the Rolling Stones, and Beyoncé, and sought $150,000 in damages per infringement.
The publishers expressed satisfaction with the court’s decision to implement these “guardrails,” viewing it as validation of their claims against Anthropic’s AI chatbot Claude’s unauthorized reproduction of copyrighted lyrics.
The measures require Anthropic to maintain various protective controls in its current AI models and implement similar safeguards in future large language models and product offerings.
“Anthropic will be required to maintain various guardrails in its Claude AI models going forward and to implement those guardrails in future large language models and product offerings as well.”
Universal Music Group
“We are pleased the Court approved these important ‘guardrails’ – measures which Anthropic must take to protect the Publisher-Plaintiffs’ copyrighted content, by preventing infringing outputs of copyrighted song lyrics – effectively acknowledging the merits of our claims against Claude’s infringing outputs,” UMG said on behalf of the other publishers in a statement issued to MBW.
“Under the terms of the stipulation, Anthropic will be required to maintain various guardrails in its Claude AI models going forward and to implement those guardrails in future large language models and product offerings as well.”
While welcoming Anthropic’s agreement to the stipulation as “a positive step forward,” the publishers stressed that their legal battle continues. A key aspect of their lawsuit remains unresolved – specifically, their motion for a preliminary injunction seeking to prevent Anthropic from using publishers’ lyrics for future AI model training.
“While Anthropic’s stipulation is a positive step forward, this lawsuit remains ongoing, and the publishers’ motion for a preliminary injunction seeking to prevent Anthropic from exploiting the publishers’ lyrics for future training of AI models is still pending before the court,” UMG said.
The court-approved agreement establishes a mechanism for publishers to notify Anthropic if they detect instances where the protective measures fail to prevent unauthorized reproduction of their copyrighted lyrics. Under these terms, Anthropic must respond promptly and investigate such allegations, working with the publishers “in good faith” to address any identified issues.
“Anthropic will ultimately provide a detailed written response identifying when and how Anthropic will address the issue identified in Publishers’ notice, or Anthropic will clearly state its intent not to address the issue,” according to a stipulation and proposed order handed down by Judge Eumi K. Lee of the US District Court for the Northern District of California.
“Anthropic will ultimately provide a detailed written response identifying when and how Anthropic will address the issue identified in Publishers’ notice, or Anthropic will clearly state its intent not to address the issue.”
Judge Eumi K. Lee, US District Court for the Northern District of California
Anthropic filed a motion with the court in August to dismiss the charges brought against it by the music publishers. It also asked the court to remove claims of “contributory” copyright infringement, “vicarious” copyright infringement, and “removal or alteration of copyright management information,” a violation of the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).
Subsequently in September, Universal, Concord, and ABKCO urged the court to reject the request for dismissal.
Amid the lawsuit, Anthropic landed an additional $4 billion investment from online retail and web services giant Amazon in late November. That brings Amazon’s total investment in Anthropic to $8 billion, when including a $4 billion investment announced in September 2023.
Music Business Worldwide