Music publishers, including Universal Music, ABKCO, and Concord, have escalated their legal battle against AI company Anthropic over copyright infringement claims. The publishers have responded to Anthropic's opposition to their preliminary injunction motion with several key arguments.

Key Points of Publishers' Response:

• Anthropic's implemented "guardrails" are insufficient and inconsistent, potentially allowing continued copyright infringement
• Publishers reject Anthropic's claim that they're responsible for infringement by submitting test queries
• Training large language models (LLMs) on copyrighted materials without permission isn't protected under fair use
• The AI company's use of lyrics is commercial rather than transformative
• Unauthorized AI-generated lyrical derivatives and mashups pose significant concerns for artistic control

The publishers argue that Anthropic's activities:

• Threaten long-term licensing prospects
• Compete directly with legitimate licensees
• Create unauthorized derivatives that may contravene songwriters' intent
• Produce error-filled or offensive outputs

The preliminary injunction seeks to:

• Make Anthropic's current guardrails permanent during litigation
• Prevent the use of protected lyrics in future AI model training

This case follows recent developments in AI copyright law, including a partial dismissal of Sarah Silverman's class-action suit against OpenAI.

Publishers emphasize that Anthropic's AI system poses a unique threat to artistic control by copying, altering, and combining lyrics without authorization, potentially creating content that publishers "would not license at any cost."

Related Articles

Previous Articles