The owners of Elvis Presley‘s music have launched a legal war over artificial intelligence, suing AI giant Anthropic over accusations that it trained its models on hundreds of the legendary artist’s song without permission.
The new lawsuit, filed Friday (Oct. 23) and first reported by Billboard, claims that Anthropic, the tech behemoth behind Claude, infringed 274 of the rock legend’s copyrighted songs, including famed hits like “Can’t Help Falling in Love,” “A Little Less Conversation” and “Don’t Be Cruel.”
“The Elvis Plaintiffs bring this action to enforce these exclusive rights against the defendant that has built its entire business model based on copyright infringement at a scale never seen before,” writes Richard Busch, the lead attorney behind the lawsuit. “The Elvis Plaintiffs are deeply protective of these iconic songs.”
Though music companies like Universal Music Group have already repeatedly sued AI companies for stealing their IP, the new lawsuits represents by far the most high-profile legal action filed on behalf of an individual musician — in this case, arguably the most famous recording artist of all time.
The case was filed by a unit of Authentic Brands Group, the licensing giant that largely controls the intellectual property rights to Elvis, including much of his song catalog, his brand trademarks and the rights to his name, image and likeness. It was co-filed by various other entities that own Elvis rights.
Like other AI firms, Anthropic is already facing numerous lawsuits over the process of “training” their models to create new ones, which involves ingesting millions of existing works without permission. AI companies say that process is protected by copyright’s fair use defense, but that issue remains pending across dozens of lawsuits — with billions of dollars in potential damages at stake.
Litigation over AI music has centered more on Suno, the leading AI song generator, which was sued in 2024 by all three major music companies over such training accusations. It eventually settled with Warner Music Group last year and has vowed to partner with the music industry, but is still facing contentious litigation from UMG and Sony Music. Anthropic, a far larger AI firm, has faced similar cases across creative industries, including from music publishers.
The new case Friday largely mirrors those earlier cases, claiming Anthropic illegally used music en masse to create technology that produces “unlicensed derivative works.” But it centers on what the Elvis plaintiffs call “some of the most groundbreaking, revolutionary, influential, and enduring musical compositions in human history.”
That includes “Can’t Help,” arguably Presley’s most famous song, “Don’t Be Cruel,” one of his early massive hits, and “Little Less,” which saw a resurgence in popularity due to a 2000s remix. The lawsuit also cites “All Shook Up,” “Return to Sender” and “(You’re The) Devil in Disguise”.
A rep for Anthropic did not immediately return a request for comment on Saturday.
Busch is no stranger to high-profile music cases. He represented Eminem in landmark cases in the 2000s over digital downloads, and later represented Marvin Gaye’s estate in a famous copyright case against Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams, eventually winning a much-debated verdict that their “Blurred Lines” infringed Gaye’s “Got to Give It Up.”
