# Concord Music Group v. Anthropic

> Source: https://aiwiki.ai/wiki/concord_v_anthropic
> Updated: 2026-06-27
> Categories: AI Incidents & Controversies, AI Policy & Regulation, Anthropic
> From AI Wiki (https://aiwiki.ai), a free encyclopedia of artificial intelligence. Quote with attribution.

**Concord Music Group, Inc., et al. v. Anthropic PBC** is a federal copyright lawsuit in which a coalition of major music publishers, led by Concord Music Group with Universal Music Publishing Group and ABKCO Music, accuses [Anthropic](/wiki/anthropic) of infringing the copyrights in their song lyrics. The publishers allege that Anthropic copied the lyrics of roughly 500 songs into the training data of its [Claude](/wiki/claude) [large language models](/wiki/llm) without a license, and that Claude reproduces those lyrics in response to user prompts. The action was filed on October 18, 2023, in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee, transferred to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California on June 24, 2024, and remains pending before Judge Eumi K. Lee, where summary judgment briefing is scheduled to be completed by June 8, 2026, with a hearing on dispositive motions set for July 15, 2026.[1][2][3]

The case is one of the most closely watched matters in the broader wave of [generative AI](/wiki/generative_ai) [copyright](/wiki/ai_copyright) litigation. It is the first U.S. suit specifically targeting song lyrics rather than books, news articles, source code, or images, and the publishers' demands for both training-side and output-side relief have drawn the court into several first-of-their-kind procedural rulings on AI guardrails, irreparable harm, secondary liability, and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act ("DMCA"). Allegations in a lawsuit are claims, not findings; the court has not ruled on whether Anthropic's conduct is lawful. As of mid-2026, dispositive motions are pending on threshold fair use questions, and a parallel action filed in early 2026 ("Concord II") expands the dispute to allegations that Anthropic used the BitTorrent protocol to acquire books containing the publishers' lyrics from so-called shadow library archives.[4][5]

## What is Concord v. Anthropic?

Concord v. Anthropic is a copyright infringement lawsuit brought by music publishers against the AI developer Anthropic over the use of song lyrics. The publishers contend that an AI company cannot copy and distribute their copyrighted works to build a commercial product without a license; Anthropic contends that training a general-purpose language model on text, including lyrics, is a transformative fair use. The complaint asserts that "a defendant cannot reproduce, distribute, and display someone else's copyrighted works to build its own business unless it secures permission from the rightsholder," a rule the publishers trace to the Statute of Anne of 1710.[7][11] Whether training on copyrighted lyrics qualifies as fair use, and whether Anthropic is liable for Claude's outputs, are the central disputed questions, and they remain undecided.

## Who are the parties?

### Plaintiffs

The original ("Concord I") complaint was filed by eight music publisher plaintiffs:[1][6]

1. Concord Music Group, Inc.
2. Universal Music Corp.
3. Songs of Universal, Inc.
4. Universal Music - MGB NA LLC
5. Universal Music - Z Tunes LLC
6. Polygram Publishing, Inc.
7. ABKCO Music, Inc.
8. Capitol CMG, Inc.

The Universal Music Corp., Songs of Universal, Universal Music - MGB NA, Universal Music - Z Tunes, Polygram Publishing, and Capitol CMG entities all sit within the Universal Music Publishing Group ("UMPG") family, the publishing arm of Universal Music Group. Concord Music Group is the publishing entity behind catalogs that include Pulse Music Group, Rodgers and Hammerstein, and many compositions co-administered with major songwriters. ABKCO Music & Records is the longstanding publisher and rights administrator that controls early Rolling Stones publishing rights along with works by Sam Cooke and others. Together, the plaintiffs say they hold or administer copyrights in many of the best-known compositions in the U.S. and international popular music canon.[2][7]

The publishers are represented by Oppenheim + Zebrak LLP, the firm that has also represented major record labels in cases against [generative AI](/wiki/generative_ai) music developers Suno and Udio.[4][7]

### Defendant

Anthropic PBC is a Delaware-incorporated public benefit corporation headquartered in San Francisco, California, founded in 2021 by [Dario Amodei](/wiki/dario_amodei), [Daniela Amodei](/wiki/daniela_amodei), and several former OpenAI researchers. Anthropic develops the [Claude](/wiki/claude) family of [large language models](/wiki/llm) and serves enterprise and consumer customers through its API and its Claude.ai chat product. Anthropic is represented in the matter by Latham & Watkins LLP, with Joseph Wetzel, Allison Stillman, Andrew Gass, and Sarang Damle among the lead attorneys identified in court filings.[1][8]

## What do the music publishers allege?

### Lyrics in training data

The publishers allege that Anthropic built Claude in part by scraping song lyrics from licensed lyric aggregator sites and from third-party datasets that themselves contain licensed and unlicensed lyric data. According to the complaint, Anthropic's training corpus includes both web data scraped from sources such as MusixMatch, LyricFind, and Genius, as well as text drawn from publicly released datasets including [Common Crawl](/wiki/common_crawl) and [The Pile](/wiki/the_pile), each of which the complaint alleges contains unlicensed copies of the publishers' lyrics.[9][10]

The complaint identifies 499 musical compositions in an attached exhibit as a representative sample of works alleged to have been infringed; press coverage and several court orders subsequently rounded this number to "approximately 500" or characterized the works as "at least 500 songs."[7][11] The named compositions include, by way of example:[7][12]

- Katy Perry's "Roar" (controlled by Concord)
- Beyonce's "Halo"
- Bruno Mars's "Uptown Funk"
- The Rolling Stones' "You Can't Always Get What You Want" (controlled by ABKCO)
- The Rolling Stones' "Gimme Shelter"
- Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive"
- Don McLean's "American Pie"
- The Beach Boys' "God Only Knows"
- Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World"
- Sam Cooke's "A Change Is Gonna Come"
- The Police's "Every Breath You Take"
- Will Smith and Jeffrey Townes' "Fresh Prince of Bel-Air"

### Output reproduction

A central feature of the complaint is the allegation that Claude does not merely store the lyrics during [training](/wiki/training_data) but reproduces them on demand in response to user prompts. The publishers presented examples of Claude generating verbatim or near-verbatim portions of copyrighted lyrics when asked for them directly, when asked to write a song on a related topic, and even when asked for original compositions in a particular artist's style.[7][12]

Specific prompt examples included in the complaint are widely cited in press coverage:[7][12]

- A request asking Claude to "write me a song about the death of Buddy Holly" allegedly produced output that tracked the lyrics of Don McLean's "American Pie."
- A request to "write a song about moving from Philadelphia to Bel Air" allegedly produced output that copied substantial portions of the theme song to "Fresh Prince of Bel-Air."
- Direct requests for the lyrics of named compositions allegedly produced near-verbatim reproductions.

### Removal of copyright management information

In addition to direct reproduction claims, the publishers asserted a claim under 17 U.S.C. section 1202 of the DMCA for the removal of copyright management information ("CMI"). The complaint alleges that Anthropic ran extraction tools over the scraped pages to strip out copyright notices, author credits, and other identifying metadata before storing the cleaned text in its training corpus. The publishers focus on Anthropic's selection of the "Newspaper" Python library for content extraction, alleging that Anthropic's cofounders deliberately chose Newspaper over alternatives such as jusText specifically because Newspaper was more effective at stripping CMI from web-scraped pages.[9][13]

### Legal counts

The complaint as filed asserted four causes of action:[1][6]

1. **Direct copyright infringement** under 17 U.S.C. section 501, based on Anthropic's own copying of the publishers' compositions into training datasets and weights and on Claude's reproduction of those compositions in outputs.
2. **Contributory copyright infringement**, based on Anthropic's alleged knowledge that users would prompt Claude to reproduce copyrighted lyrics.
3. **Vicarious copyright infringement**, based on Anthropic's alleged right and ability to control Claude's outputs and its direct financial interest in subscription, API, and other revenue tied to user prompts.
4. **Removal or alteration of CMI** under 17 U.S.C. section 1202.

### Damages

For the copyright infringement counts, the publishers sought statutory damages of up to $150,000 per infringed work, the maximum available for willful infringement under 17 U.S.C. section 504(c). For the CMI claims, the complaint sought damages of up to $25,000 per violation under 17 U.S.C. section 1203(c)(3)(B), along with injunctive relief, attorneys' fees, and destruction of infringing materials. Early press coverage described the statutory-damages exposure on the 499-song exhibit as on the order of $75 million if every work were found willfully infringed.[11][14]

## How has Anthropic defended itself?

Anthropic has consistently denied liability and asserted several defenses, the most significant of which is fair use under 17 U.S.C. section 107.

In its public statements and court filings, Anthropic has characterized the inclusion of lyric text in its training corpus as a transformative use that produces a [large language model](/wiki/llm) capable of a wide variety of tasks rather than a competing lyrics product. Anthropic has analogized its training process to the intermediate copying upheld as fair use in *Authors Guild v. Google* (the Google Books case) and in software interoperability cases such as *Sega v. Accolade* and *Sony v. Connectix*. Anthropic has also pointed to its content filters as evidence that Claude is not designed to function as a lyrics-distribution service.[8][15]

Anthropic separately argued that:

- The publishers had not adequately alleged "volitional" conduct by Anthropic with respect to user-generated outputs, because the company does not select prompts or curate Claude's responses on a per-query basis.[16]
- The publishers' contributory and vicarious infringement claims failed because the complaint did not identify any third-party direct infringer; the prompts cited in the complaint were submitted by the publishers' own investigators rather than by ordinary users.[16][17]
- The publishers had not pled facts sufficient to show that Anthropic knew its extraction tooling would remove CMI in the section 1202 sense rather than merely as a byproduct of converting HTML pages to plain text.[17]

Anthropic also moved to dismiss the original complaint for lack of personal jurisdiction in Tennessee and for improper venue, arguing that the company has no operations, employees, or principal offices in Tennessee and that the connection asserted by the publishers (a Nashville music-industry presence and the residence of certain plaintiff employees) did not satisfy due-process requirements.[16][18]

## What is the procedural history?

### Tennessee filing and motion practice

The case was filed on October 18, 2023, in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee in Nashville and was docketed as *Concord Music Group, Inc. et al. v. Anthropic PBC*, No. 3:23-cv-01092. The case was assigned to Chief Judge Waverly D. Crenshaw, Jr.[1][18]

On November 16, 2023, less than a month after filing, the publishers moved for a preliminary injunction seeking two forms of relief: (i) an order requiring Anthropic to cease using the publishers' lyrics in any future training of Claude, and (ii) an order requiring Anthropic to maintain technical "guardrails" to prevent Claude from reproducing the publishers' lyrics in outputs.[18][19]

Anthropic responded on November 22, 2023, with a motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction and improper venue, along with an opposition to preliminary injunctive relief. Briefing extended into 2024, with the court declining to rule on the preliminary injunction motion until the threshold venue issue was resolved.[16][18]

### Transfer to the Northern District of California

On June 24, 2024, Judge Crenshaw issued a memorandum opinion granting Anthropic's motion in part. The court found that the publishers had not made the required prima facie showing that Anthropic was subject to specific personal jurisdiction in Tennessee, that the alleged in-forum conduct (Anthropic's nationwide distribution of Claude reaching Tennessee residents and the location of certain music-industry plaintiffs in Nashville) did not satisfy the "purposeful availment" standard, and that transfer to the Northern District of California, rather than dismissal, served the interests of justice. The court therefore transferred the case to the Northern District of California, where Anthropic maintains its principal place of business.[16][18][20]

The case was redocketed in the Northern District of California as No. 5:24-cv-03811-EKL and assigned to Judge Eumi K. Lee, sitting in San Jose. (Magistrate Judge Susan van Keulen was later assigned for discovery matters.)[3][16]

### Renewed preliminary injunction motion and stipulation

On August 1, 2024, the publishers renewed their motion for a preliminary injunction. Anthropic filed an opposition on August 22, 2024, arguing both that the publishers had failed to show likelihood of success on the merits and that they had not shown irreparable harm given Claude's existing content filters.[8][16]

On November 25, 2024, Judge Lee held a lengthy oral argument on the renewed motion.[21]

Before the court ruled, the parties entered into a partial agreement that narrowed the preliminary injunction dispute. On December 30, 2024, the parties stipulated, and on January 2, 2025, Judge Lee entered an order under which:[22][23][24]

- Anthropic committed to maintain its already-implemented "guardrails" designed to prevent Claude from outputting the publishers' copyrighted lyrics, both verbatim and as part of new compositions allegedly derived from those lyrics.
- The guardrails obligation extends to all current and future Anthropic models and products, including future major versions of [Claude](/wiki/claude).
- Anthropic retained the right to "expand, improve, optimize, or change the implementation" of the guardrails so long as the changes do not "materially diminish" their effectiveness.
- The publishers gained a notice-and-investigation mechanism: if they believe the guardrails are not effectively preventing infringing outputs, they may notify Anthropic in writing, after which Anthropic must conduct an expeditious investigation and respond with either a remediation plan or an explanation of its refusal to remediate.
- The stipulation resolved the output-related portion of the preliminary injunction motion only; the publishers' request to enjoin training-side use of the lyrics in future models remained pending.

Universal Music Group, speaking on behalf of the publishers, described the order as a partial vindication: "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."[22][24] Anthropic characterized the stipulation as confirming that its existing safety measures already addressed any cognizable risk of output-side infringement, and stated that its training practices remained consistent with existing copyright law through fair use.[22][24]

### March 2025: preliminary injunction denied

On March 25, 2025, Judge Lee denied the remainder of the publishers' motion for a preliminary injunction. The court's decision is reported at *Concord Music Group, Inc. v. Anthropic PBC*, 772 F. Supp. 3d 1131 (N.D. Cal. 2025), and at 2025 WL 1482734.[25][26]

The court's reasoning addressed both prongs of the preliminary injunction standard:

- **Scope of the requested relief.** The court found the proposed injunction overbroad and poorly defined. The publishers asked the court to bar Anthropic from "any use" of "their works" for training, but the works at issue were not limited to the 499 compositions in the original exhibit; they encompassed hundreds of thousands of works in the publishers' collective catalogs. The court held that the proposed relief would impose unclear compliance terms on Anthropic and was not narrowly tailored to the alleged harm.[25][26]
- **Irreparable harm.** The court held that the publishers had not made the required showing of irreparable harm. Their evidence of reputational harm was tied primarily to Claude's outputs, which the January 2025 stipulation had already addressed. The publishers had not adduced evidence of lost licensing deals or unfavorable terms in the existing lyrics licensing markets (for example, with LyricFind, MusixMatch, and Genius), and their claims of harm to the "emerging AI training market" for lyrics were characterized as speculative.[25][26]

Importantly, the court did not decide the fair use question on the merits. The order expressly preserved the publishers' ability to seek damages and a permanent injunction at later stages of the case.[25][27]

### March 2025: motion to dismiss order

The day after denying the preliminary injunction, the court issued an order on Anthropic's motion to dismiss the original complaint. The court allowed the publishers' direct infringement claim to proceed but granted dismissal of the contributory infringement, vicarious infringement, and DMCA section 1202 claims, with leave to amend.[17][28]

Key holdings included:[17][28]

- **Contributory infringement.** The court held that allegations that unidentified users "might" use Claude to obtain copyrighted lyrics were insufficient. At the hearing, the publishers acknowledged that several of the prompts cited in the complaint had in fact been submitted by their own investigators rather than by ordinary users. Without a sufficiently pled predicate act of third-party direct infringement, the contributory claim could not proceed.
- **Vicarious infringement.** The court held that the publishers had adequately alleged that Anthropic receives a direct financial benefit from queries that produce allegedly infringing outputs (because Anthropic earns revenue when Claude is prompted or generates output), but had not adequately pled the predicate third-party direct infringement element for the same reasons that doomed the contributory claim.
- **DMCA section 1202.** The court found that the complaint did not plead facts sufficient to support an inference that Anthropic intentionally removed CMI rather than incidentally losing it during HTML-to-text conversion.

### First Amended Complaint

The publishers filed a First Amended Complaint on April 25, 2025, addressing the dismissed claims. The amended complaint provided more detail about specific user-side infringement, fleshed out the allegations against Anthropic concerning the choice of the "Newspaper" extraction library, and added new evidentiary detail about Anthropic's training pipeline drawn from materials the publishers obtained in discovery and from public filings in the parallel [Bartz v. Anthropic](/wiki/bartz_v_anthropic) book-author case.[9][29]

### October 2025: Anthropic's motion to dismiss the amended complaint denied

On October 6, 2025, Judge Lee denied Anthropic's motion to dismiss the First Amended Complaint. The order allowed all four counts to proceed, holding that:[4][29][30]

- The amended pleading sufficiently identified third-party direct infringement by Claude users beyond the publishers' investigators, and adequately alleged Anthropic's knowledge of such infringement, for purposes of the contributory infringement claim.
- The amended pleading plausibly alleged that the availability of the publishers' lyrics is a draw for Claude users and that Claude "would not be as valuable" without the publishers' lyrics in its corpus, satisfying the financial-benefit element of vicarious liability.
- The amended pleading plausibly alleged that Anthropic's cofounders chose the "Newspaper" library specifically because it was more effective at removing CMI than alternatives such as jusText, and that Anthropic understood that [large language models](/wiki/llm) tend to memorize and reproduce training data. The court held that these allegations, taken together, supported a plausible inference of the scienter required for DMCA section 1202 liability.

### October 2025: leave to add a piracy claim denied

On October 9, 2025, Judge Lee denied the publishers' motion for leave to file a Second Amended Complaint that would have added a new claim against Anthropic for using BitTorrent to obtain copies of books containing the publishers' lyrics from shadow libraries (so-called "Bartz-style" piracy claims based on materials uncovered in the parallel *Bartz v. Anthropic* book-author litigation). The court reasoned that the proposed amendment came too late in the schedule and that the new claim involved sufficiently distinct facts and proof to be brought, if at all, as a separate action.[31][32]

The publishers thereafter pursued the piracy claim as a separate lawsuit.

### "Concord II": the 2026 piracy case

On January 28, 2026, the three publishers identified in press reporting as the most active in Concord I, namely Concord Music Group, Universal Music Group, and ABKCO Music, filed a new complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. The case is docketed as *Concord Music Group, Inc. v. Anthropic PBC*, No. 5:26-cv-00880, and is colloquially referred to as "Concord II."[14][33]

The Concord II complaint expanded both the universe of accused acts and the universe of accused defendants:[14][33]

- It named, in addition to Anthropic PBC, individual defendants Dario Amodei (Anthropic's CEO and cofounder) and Benjamin Mann (cofounder).
- It alleged that Anthropic obtained millions of unauthorized books containing musical compositions from pirate sites Library Genesis ("LibGen") and Pirate Library Mirror ("PiLiMi") by using BitTorrent.
- It alleged that Mann personally engaged in the torrenting and that Amodei discussed and authorized it.
- It enumerated 714 musical compositions in Exhibit A and 20,517 additional compositions in Exhibit B, including "Wild Horses," "Sweet Caroline," "Bennie and the Jets," and "Eye of the Tiger." Press coverage reported that multiplying the high-end $150,000 willful-infringement figure across the Exhibit B works produces a theoretical maximum exposure of more than $3 billion.

The publishers' counsel characterized the conduct as "flagrant piracy" in the new complaint and in public statements.[14] On March 6, 2026, Anthropic filed a Motion to Stay in Concord II, seeking to hold that action in abeyance pending final resolution of Concord I or, alternatively, pending resolution of summary judgment in Concord I. Anthropic's stay motion was set for hearing on May 20, 2026, before Judge Lee.[5][34]

## What is the current status of the case?

The Concord I case is in pretrial dispositive motion practice. According to publicly available scheduling orders and contemporaneous reporting, the schedule was pushed back in early 2026: summary judgment briefing is to be fully completed by June 8, 2026, with a hearing on dispositive motions scheduled for July 15, 2026. Commentators have widely characterized Judge Lee's eventual fair use ruling as one of the next major AI copyright decisions to follow the June 2025 decisions of Judge William Alsup in *Bartz v. Anthropic* and Judge Vince Chhabria in [Kadrey v. Meta](/wiki/kadrey_v_meta).[4][5][35]

As of mid-2026, the matter is in the following posture:[3][4][5]

- **Concord I (No. 5:24-cv-03811, N.D. Cal.):** Pending before Judge Eumi K. Lee. Direct, contributory, and vicarious infringement claims and a DMCA section 1202 claim are pleaded under the First Amended Complaint and have survived Anthropic's motion to dismiss. Anthropic agreed in January 2025 to maintain output-side "guardrails" pursuant to a court-entered stipulation. Fact and expert discovery is substantially complete. Summary judgment briefing is to be fully submitted by June 8, 2026, with a hearing on dispositive motions on July 15, 2026.
- **Concord II (No. 5:26-cv-00880, N.D. Cal.):** Pending before Judge Lee. Anthropic's motion to stay the action pending resolution of Concord I was set for hearing on May 20, 2026.

The case has not settled. As of the same period, no public reports indicated that Concord I had been formally consolidated with *Bartz v. Anthropic* (the related book-author class action against Anthropic that produced its own June 2025 fair use ruling and a separately reported settlement in late 2025), although the cases share several factual themes and an overlapping discovery record concerning Anthropic's BitTorrent activity.[4][14][35]

## Why does Concord v. Anthropic matter?

### A new front in AI copyright litigation

Concord Music Group v. Anthropic was the first U.S. lawsuit by music publishers against a [generative AI](/wiki/generative_ai) developer over the use of song lyrics, although it has since been followed by suits against music-generation AI services by the major record labels and by additional publisher-side actions. Its docket has become a leading vehicle for fair use, secondary liability, and DMCA questions specific to lyrics, which differ from the questions presented by books or news articles. Lyrics are typically short, highly memorable, and licensed in well-developed digital aggregator markets (such as MusixMatch, LyricFind, and Genius), which the publishers argue gives them a strong basis to say that an AI training market should be analyzed against an active, paid licensing baseline rather than a non-existent or nascent market.[7][9]

### Guardrails as a litigation tool

The January 2025 stipulation is notable as one of the first court-approved agreements specifying technical guardrails on a [generative AI](/wiki/generative_ai) system. The stipulation requires that Anthropic's guardrails apply to both current and future products and includes a structured notice-and-investigation procedure under court oversight. Commentators have described the stipulation as a template that other rightsholders may seek to replicate in cases against other AI developers, and as an illustration of how courts may end up policing AI outputs going forward even where they decline to enjoin training-side conduct.[22][23][24]

### Irreparable harm and the AI training market

Judge Lee's March 2025 preliminary injunction order is widely cited for the proposition that allegations of harm to a hypothetical "AI training market" are too speculative, at least at the preliminary injunction stage, to support irreparable harm in an AI training copyright case. The ruling reinforces the practical pattern emerging across AI copyright cases in which preliminary injunctions are difficult to obtain and disputes are pushed instead to merits adjudication on the fair use defense and to monetary remedies.[25][36]

### Secondary liability and the "investigator prompt" problem

Judge Lee's two motion-to-dismiss orders illustrate a recurring problem in [generative AI](/wiki/generative_ai) copyright pleading: rightsholders frequently produce examples of infringing outputs that were generated by their own investigators, who do not themselves constitute infringing third parties for purposes of contributory or vicarious liability. The court's March 2025 order required the publishers to plead more concrete user-side direct infringement to maintain their secondary liability theories, while the October 2025 order found that the First Amended Complaint had cleared that bar. The arc of the rulings sets out a roadmap that other rightsholder plaintiffs and defendants will likely follow in similar cases.[17][29]

### DMCA section 1202 in the AI context

The October 2025 order is also noteworthy for its treatment of DMCA section 1202. The court held that allegations of intentional tool selection (Anthropic's alleged choice of the "Newspaper" library because it was more effective at stripping CMI than alternatives, combined with Anthropic's alleged knowledge that [language models](/wiki/llm) memorize and reproduce training data) can plausibly establish the scienter required for DMCA section 1202 liability in an AI training context, an area of law that had previously been litigated almost exclusively in cases such as *Doe 1 v. GitHub* and *Tremblay v. OpenAI* with mixed outcomes.[29][37]

### Fair use ahead

The pending summary judgment briefing in Concord I, scheduled to conclude in June 2026, is widely expected to be the principal vehicle for Judge Lee's fair use ruling. Because the case presents both training-side and output-side allegations, the court will likely have to address several questions that earlier AI fair use rulings either declined to reach or addressed only partially:

- Whether copying short, highly creative works such as song lyrics for training [large language models](/wiki/llm) is transformative when the model can be prompted to reproduce them.
- Whether the presence of guardrails affects the fair use balance.
- Whether the existing licensed lyrics aggregator market, and the nascent licensing market for AI training, constitute fourth-factor markets that the publishers are entitled to protect against unlicensed substitution.

Because Judge Lee has held that fair use is not amenable to resolution at the pleadings stage in this matter and because the preliminary injunction order expressly did not decide the question, the summary judgment ruling, if it reaches the merits, will be one of the first substantive judicial decisions on these questions in the music-publishing context.[4][25]

## ELI5: What is this case about?

Some music publishers own the rights to the words of a lot of famous songs. They say the company Anthropic copied those song lyrics to teach its AI chatbot, Claude, and that Claude will sometimes print the lyrics back out when people ask. The publishers are suing to be paid and to make Anthropic stop. Anthropic says using lots of text to teach an AI, including lyrics, is allowed under a rule called "fair use," and that it has added filters so Claude does not just hand out the lyrics. A judge in California is deciding who is right, and as of mid-2026 no final decision has been made.

## See also

- [Anthropic](/wiki/anthropic)
- [Claude](/wiki/claude)
- [AI copyright](/wiki/ai_copyright)
- [Bartz v. Anthropic](/wiki/bartz_v_anthropic)
- [Kadrey v. Meta](/wiki/kadrey_v_meta)
- [Dario Amodei](/wiki/dario_amodei)
- [Daniela Amodei](/wiki/daniela_amodei)
- [Common Crawl](/wiki/common_crawl)
- [The Pile (dataset)](/wiki/the_pile)
- [Generative AI](/wiki/generative_ai)
- [LLM](/wiki/llm)
- [Training data](/wiki/training_data)

## References

1. CourtListener. "Concord Music Group, Inc. v. Anthropic PBC, 3:23-cv-01092." https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/67894459/concord-music-group-inc-v-anthropic-pbc/. Accessed 2026-06-27.
2. Justia Dockets. "Concord Music Group, Inc. et al v. Anthropic PBC 3:2023cv01092." https://dockets.justia.com/docket/tennessee/tnmdce/3:2023cv01092/96652. Accessed 2026-06-27.
3. U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. "Concord Music Group, Inc. et al v. Anthropic PBC, 5:24-cv-03811-EKL." https://cand.uscourts.gov/cases-e-filing/cases/524-cv-03811-ekl/concord-music-group-inc-et-al-v-anthropic-pbc. Accessed 2026-06-27.
4. Chat GPT Is Eating the World. "Summary judgment, trial gets pushed back in Concord Music v. Anthropic; next fair use decision in AI training might not be until fall 2026." February 28, 2026. https://chatgptiseatingtheworld.com/2026/02/28/summary-judgment-trial-gets-pushed-back-in-concord-music-v-anthropic-next-fair-use-decision-in-ai-training-might-not-be-until-fall-2026/. Accessed 2026-06-27.
5. CourtListener. "Concord Music Group, Inc. v. Anthropic PBC, 5:26-cv-00880." https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/72199828/concord-music-group-inc-v-anthropic-pbc/. Accessed 2026-06-27.
6. BakerHostetler. "Concord Music Group, Inc. v. Anthropic PBC." https://www.bakerlaw.com/concord-music-group-inc-v-anthropic-pbc/. Accessed 2026-06-27.
7. The Hollywood Reporter. "AI Sued Over Ripping Off Rolling Stones, Beyonce, Katy Perry Lyrics." https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/universal-music-lawsuit-rolling-stones-beyonce-lyrics-1235622348/. Accessed 2026-06-27.
8. Anthropic. "Anthropic's Opposition to Renewed Motion for Preliminary Injunction" (August 22, 2024). https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Concord-Music-Group-v-Anthropic-Opposition-to-Preliminary-Injunction-8-22-24.pdf. Accessed 2026-06-27.
9. First Amended Complaint, Concord Music Group, Inc. et al. v. Anthropic PBC, No. 5:24-cv-03811-EKL-SVK (N.D. Cal., filed April 25, 2025). https://chatgptiseatingtheworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Concord-Music-1st-amended-complaint-April-25-2025.pdf. Accessed 2026-06-27.
10. Knowing Machines. "Concord Music Group v. Anthropic." https://knowingmachines.org/knowing-legal-machines/legal-explainer/cases/concord-v-anthropic. Accessed 2026-06-27.
11. Variety. "Universal, Concord, ABKCO Sue AI Company Anthropic for Copyright Violation." October 19, 2023. https://variety.com/2023/music/news/universal-concord-abkco-sue-ai-company-anthropic-copyright-violation-1235761250/. Accessed 2026-06-27.
12. IPWatchdog. "Latest Copyright Suit Against Generative AI Targets Anthropic's 'Claude.'" October 20, 2023. https://ipwatchdog.com/2023/10/20/latest-copyright-suit-generative-ai-targets-anthropics-claude/id=168573/. Accessed 2026-06-27.
13. Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP. "Anthropic Tries to Strike a Chord with the Music Industry." https://www.pillsburylaw.com/en/news-and-insights/anthropic-copyright-claude-ai.html. Accessed 2026-06-27.
14. IPWatchdog. "Music Publishers File New Piracy Suit Against Anthropic Alleging Mass Torrenting of Copyrighted Works." January 29, 2026. https://ipwatchdog.com/2026/01/29/music-publishers-file-new-piracy-suit-against-anthropic-alleging-mass-torrenting-copyrighted-works/. Accessed 2026-06-27.
15. Lexology. "Anthropic Fails to Get Lyrics Copyright Infringement Case Dismissed." https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=a4bbd54a-12d5-4a15-972a-c0a5553c1e4b. Accessed 2026-06-27.
16. FindLaw. "CONCORD MUSIC GROUP INC v. ANTHROPIC PBC (2024)." https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/us-dis-crt-m-d-ten-nas-div/116305682.html. Accessed 2026-06-27.
17. Chat GPT Is Eating the World. "Anthropic scores dismissal of secondary liability, DMCA CMI claims of Concord Music. Judge Lee grants leave to amend." March 26, 2025. https://chatgptiseatingtheworld.com/2025/03/26/anthropic-scores-dismissal-of-secondary-liability-dmca-cmi-claims-of-concord-music-judge-lee-grants-leave-to-amend/. Accessed 2026-06-27.
18. Justia. "Concord Music Group, Inc. et al v. Anthropic PBC, Document 123 (M.D. Tenn. 2024)." https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/tennessee/tnmdce/3:2023cv01092/96652/123/. Accessed 2026-06-27.
19. Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, LLP. "Client Alert: Concord Music Group, Inc. et al. v. Anthropic PBC - Interim Development Narrows Issues in Pending Preliminary Injunction Motion." https://www.quinnemanuel.com/the-firm/publications/client-alert-concord-music-group-inc-et-al-v-anthropic-pbc-interim-development-narrows-issues-in-pending-preliminary-injunction-motion/. Accessed 2026-06-27.
20. Bloomberg Law. "Anthropic Wins California Transfer for Lyrics Copyright Lawsuit." https://news.bloomberglaw.com/us-law-week/anthropic-wins-california-transfer-for-lyrics-copyright-lawsuit. Accessed 2026-06-27.
21. Chat GPT Is Eating the World. "Judge Lee holds marathon hearing re: preliminary injunction motion in Concord Music v. Anthropic." November 26, 2024. https://chatgptiseatingtheworld.com/2024/11/26/judge-lee-holds-marathon-hearing-re-preliminary-injunction-motion-in-concord-music-v-anthropic/. Accessed 2026-06-27.
22. Music Business Worldwide. "Universal Music, Concord Music, ABKCO welcome court-approved 'guardrails' in Anthropic AI dispute - as legal battle continues." https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/universal-music-concord-music-abkco-welcome-court-approved-guardrails-in-anthropic-ai-dispute/. Accessed 2026-06-27.
23. PPC Land. "Concord Music and Anthropic reach partial agreement in copyright infringement case." https://ppc.land/concord-music-and-anthropic-reach-partial-agreement-in-copyright-infringement-case/. Accessed 2026-06-27.
24. The Hollywood Reporter. "Music Publishers Reach Deal With AI Giant Anthropic Over Copyrighted Song Lyrics." https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/anthropic-enforce-copyright-guardrails-ai-tools-1236098152/. Accessed 2026-06-27.
25. Concord Music Group, Inc. v. Anthropic PBC, 772 F. Supp. 3d 1131 (N.D. Cal. 2025) (redacted public version). https://bpb-us-e2.wpmucdn.com/sites.uci.edu/dist/d/2220/files/2025/07/Concord-Music-Group-Inc-v-Anthropic-PBC_Redacted.pdf. Accessed 2026-06-27.
26. Concord Music Group, Inc. v. Anthropic PBC, Slip Copy, 2025 WL 1482734 (N.D. Cal. 2025). https://www.law.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Concord-Music-Group-Inc-v-Anthropic-PBC.pdf. Accessed 2026-06-27.
27. ai fray. "Music publishers denied preliminary injunction in U.S. copyright infringement suit against Anthropic." https://aifray.com/music-publishers-denied-preliminary-injunction-in-u-s-copyright-infringement-suit-against-anthropic/. Accessed 2026-06-27.
28. Loeb & Loeb LLP. "Concord Music Group, Inc. v. Anthropic PBC." April 2025. https://www.loeb.com/en/insights/publications/2025/04/concord-music-group-inc-v-anthropic-pbc. Accessed 2026-06-27.
29. Chat GPT Is Eating the World. "Judge Lee rejects Anthropic's motion to dismiss parts of Concord Music's complaint." October 6, 2025. https://chatgptiseatingtheworld.com/2025/10/06/judge-lee-rejects-anthropics-motion-to-dismiss-parts-of-concord-musics-complaint/. Accessed 2026-06-27.
30. Bloomberg Law. "Anthropic Must Face Claims Over Users' Song-Lyric Infringement." https://news.bloomberglaw.com/ip-law/anthropic-must-face-claims-over-users-song-lyric-infringement. Accessed 2026-06-27.
31. Chat GPT Is Eating the World. "No Bartz II. Judge Lee rejects Concord Music's request to amend complaint to add Bartz-style piracy claim based on bittorrenting from shadow libraries." October 9, 2025. https://chatgptiseatingtheworld.com/2025/10/09/no-bartz-ii-judge-lee-rejects-concord-musics-request-to-amend-complaint-to-add-bartz-style-piracy-claim-based-on-bittorrenting-from-shadow-libraries/. Accessed 2026-06-27.
32. Chat GPT Is Eating the World. "Does Concord Music now face claim preclusion on Anthropic's alleged bittorrenting from shadow libraries." October 10, 2025. https://chatgptiseatingtheworld.com/2025/10/10/does-concord-music-now-face-claim-preclusion-on-anthropics-alleged-bittorrenting-from-shadow-libraries/. Accessed 2026-06-27.
33. Legal Era. "Concord Music Group, Universal Music Group and ABKCO Music file piracy case against Anthropic for mass torrenting of copyright works." https://www.legaleraonline.com/global/concord-music-group-universal-music-group-and-abkco-music-file-piracy-case-against-anthropic-for-mass-torrenting-of-copyright-works-978709. Accessed 2026-06-27.
34. Anthropic. "Anthropic's Motion to Stay, Concord Music v. Anthropic (II), No. 5:26-cv-00880-EKL-SVK." https://chatgptiseatingtheworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Motion-to-Stay-Concord-Music-II-1_59.pdf. Accessed 2026-06-27.
35. Chat GPT Is Eating the World. "Which judge will decide fair use next in AI copyright litigation? Judge Eumi Lee, most likely." July 7, 2025. https://chatgptiseatingtheworld.com/2025/07/07/which-judge-will-decide-fair-use-next-in-ai-copyright-litigation-judge-eumi-lee-most-likely/. Accessed 2026-06-27.
36. LVCENTINVS. "Two Days, Two Decisions: Lessons from Concord v. Anthropic." April 4, 2025. https://www.lvcentinvs.es/2025/04/04/two-days-two-decisions-lessons-from-concord-v-anthropic/. Accessed 2026-06-27.
37. Lexology. "Concord Music Group, Inc. v. Anthropic PBC." https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=58a55479-6e59-4ad3-8dc9-ddb35b6a72cc. Accessed 2026-06-27.