News BMG Sues Anthropic Copyright Lyrics 2026

March 17, 2026 — BMG Rights Management Sues Anthropic Over Use of 493 Copyrighted Song Lyrics in AI Training

Music publisher BMG Rights Management (US) LLC filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Anthropic PBC on March 17, 2026, alleging the AI company used 493 copyrighted musical compositions — including works by Bruno Mars, The Rolling Stones, and Louis Armstrong — to train its Claude AI models without authorization.

The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California (Case No. 5:26-cv-02334), asserts five causes of action: direct copyright infringement through AI training and output generation, direct infringement via torrenting pirated materials, contributory infringement, vicarious infringement, and removal of copyright management information under DMCA §1202.

BMG alleges that Anthropic obtained song lyrics through web scraping and by torrenting pirated books from shadow libraries like Library Genesis, with Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei personally authorizing the use of torrenting to bypass licensing requirements. The complaint states that BMG sent a cease-and-desist letter in December 2025, which Anthropic ignored before the lawsuit was filed.

BMG demands statutory damages up to $150,000 per infringed work (potentially totaling billions for 493 works), injunctive relief to halt the use of BMG works, and a jury trial. The publisher requested assignment to the judge handling the related Universal Music Publishing Group, Concord, and ABKCO cases against Anthropic.

The lawsuit follows Anthropic's proposed $1.5 billion settlement with authors and publishers in the parallel Bartz v Anthropic PBC class action. BMG proceeds independently as a music publisher, and its case extends beyond standard copyright claims with DMCA §1202 CMI removal allegations that could establish new precedent.

See also: BMG Rights Management v Anthropic PBC