Major music publishers including Universal Music, Concord, and ABKCO have filed a motion for preliminary injunction against AI company Anthropic in their ongoing copyright infringement lawsuit. The motion aims to stop Anthropic from using copyrighted lyrics in training its Claude AI assistant and generating unauthorized reproductions.

The publishers' key demands include:

• Implementation of effective guardrails in current AI models to prevent unauthorized lyric reproduction
• Prevention of using copyrighted lyrics for training future AI models
• Immediate cessation of unauthorized copying and tokenization of protected works

The publishers argue that Anthropic's actions cause irreparable harm by:

• Denying copyright holders control over their works
• Failing to provide proper attribution
• Creating unauthorized derivative works
• Damaging relationships with licensed partners
• Undermining songwriter confidence in publishers' ability to protect their interests

Anthropic, which recently received billions in funding from Google, maintains that using protected content as an intermediate step to create non-infringing output constitutes fair use.

Despite ongoing legal battles, the music industry continues to explore AI applications through authorized partnerships. Recent developments include:

• YouTube's launch of "Dream Track" for AI voice recreation in Shorts
• Warner Music's AI-powered deal with Edith Piaf's estate for an animated biopic
• Universal Music's expanding AI partnerships and products

The case remains active under docket number 5:24-cv-03811, with both parties awaiting the court's decision on the preliminary injunction motion.

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