The partnerships that control the rights to a substantial portion of Elvis Presley’s legendary musical catalog have filed a federal lawsuit against artificial intelligence giant Anthropic. The legal action alleges that the San Francisco-based company utilized copyrighted songs without authorization or compensation to train its online AI agent, Claude.
Filed on Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of San Francisco, the complaint targets the alleged misuse of 274 of Presley’s most prominent compositions. Among the heavily recognized tracks identified in the filing are enduring classics such as “All Shook Up,” “Can’t Help Falling in Love,” “Don’t Be Cruel,” and “Return To Sender.”
The litigation was initiated by Authentic Brands Group, which holds rights to the Presley estate, alongside other legal entities that share ownership interests in the musical catalog. In their court filing, the plaintiffs described the affected works as “some of the most groundbreaking, revolutionary, influential, and enduring musical compositions in human history.”
Attorneys representing the Presley catalog owners asserted in the lawsuit that the defendant operates on a model of widespread copyright infringement. “Defendant has built its entire business model based on copyright infringement at a scale never seen before,” the plaintiffs stated in the court document.
Responding to the legal action, an Anthropic spokesperson issued a statement on Sunday addressing the allegations. “We disagree with the claims and intend to defend this case fully,” the spokesperson said.
The lawsuit details specific technical practices regarding how copyrighted material is allegedly handled by the company. According to the complaint, Anthropic copied and stored Presley’s musical compositions into a permanent, general-purpose central library intended for indefinite retention. The filing contends that subsets of these stored works were subsequently selected and copied again to train successive generations of Claude models.
Furthermore, the plaintiffs’ legal counsel pointed out that this dispute joins a growing body of litigation involving the technology sector. At least half a dozen similar lawsuits are currently pending in federal court in San Francisco, addressing allegations that musical compositions have been improperly utilized to train artificial intelligence systems without permission.
The complaint argues that Anthropic’s operations enable users to generate unauthorized derivative works without providing compensation to the rightful copyright holders. The lawsuit suggests that the Claude assistant itself has recognized instances where generated tracks closely mirror the originals, maintaining identical structures and reusing hooks with minor rewording across full sets of verses, choruses, and bridges.
According to the legal filing, such practices cross the threshold from legitimate creative inspiration into direct reproduction of copyrighted material, even when lyrics are altered. The lawsuit maintains that this unauthorized reuse threatens to erode the economic value of the catalog rapidly, driven entirely by corporate profit motives.
Legal representatives for the Presley plaintiffs are seeking approximately $50 million in damages. In addition to financial compensation, the lawsuit demands the reimbursement of all associated court costs and attorneys’ fees incurred by the rights holders.
The complaint alleges that Anthropic was previously placed on notice regarding its unauthorized access to copyrighted material but elected to continue the practice regardless. The lawsuit accuses the company of operating without regard for the rights of creators and rightsholders, removing identifying information from works, and retaining financial gains generated from the disputed practices.
