Elvis Presley's estate sued Anthropic on Oct. 23. The complaint says Anthropic copied 274 of his songs from the internet to train Claude, skipping a license1.
Two days earlier, the same attorney sued Anthropic for Reservoir Media, a separate publisher, over 853 more songs2. Richard Busch represents both plaintiffs, and he filed the Reservoir case first.
Creative professionals, take note. Both suits ask the same federal court, in the same month, to put a price on music Anthropic already used.
Reuters Legal@ReutersLegalA group of entities that own copyrights in Elvis Presley's song catalog has sued Anthropic in California federal court for using his work without permission to train its chatbot Claude. https://t.co/l4mrE3YApO
What the Lawsuit Claims
The complaint names 274 songs, among them "Can't Help Falling in Love," "Don't Be Cruel" and "All Shook Up"1. Authentic Brands Group leads the plaintiffs, joined by two independent publishers and family trusts tied to the songs' original writers.
The math is deliberate. Statutory damages let a copyright holder skip proving an actual dollar loss. Congress set a range instead, and a judge can award up to $150,000 per work when the copying was willful1.
Three claims make up the total ask. Copying the 274 songs could cost $41.1 million at that top rate1. Two more claims, for bypassing streaming-site locks and for stripping songwriter credits before training, add $0.685 million and $6.85 million. The total comes to $48.6 million.
The Elvis estate's complaint pins $41.1 million of its $48.6 million claim on the songs alone
The three claims in ABG EPE IP LLC v. Anthropic, filed Oct. 23, 2026, in dollars
Each block is one claim in the complaint; the widest block, copying the 274 songs, carries most of the total.
Source: Music Business Worldwide [1]. Chart by Ryan Elliott Dennis.
The numbers behind this chart
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Copying 274 songs | $41.100 million |
| Bypassing site locks | $0.685 million |
| Stripping songwriter credits | $6.850 million |
| Whole | $48.635 million |
The credit-stripping claim gets specific. Anthropic tested at least three tools for pulling text from web pages, the complaint says. It picked one called Newspaper for how cleanly that tool removed songwriter and publisher names1.
Anthropic passed over a rival tool for a different reason, the filing says. That tool kept footnotes with copyright notices. Engineers at Anthropic called those notices "boilerplate."
Busch wrote plainly in the filing. "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," he wrote5. The line reads as a closing argument. Busch wrote it for reporters as much as for Judge William Orrick.
A Sixth Suit in Three Years
Anthropic has now faced six separate music-copyright suits since October 20231. Universal Music Publishing Group, Concord Music Group and ABKCO filed first. They added a second case in January 2026, covering more than 20,000 works.
BMG followed in March over 493 songs. Sony Music Publishing and Warner Chappell Music filed on Aug. 281.
Busch moves fast. He has a record in big music cases, including the 2015 "Blurred Lines" verdict for Marvin Gaye's family5. Busch now runs both the Reservoir and Elvis estate claims at once. Publishers keep hiring lawyers who already beat a tech company in court, over lawyers who specialize only in AI.
Reservoir's claim covers 853 songs by Joni Mitchell, Johnny Cash, Madonna and Evanescence2. It seeks $151.4 million from Anthropic alone. Paired with the Elvis estate's ask, the two suits filed two days apart put $200 million on the table1.
Reservoir and the Elvis estate together claim $200 million from Anthropic
Statutory and DMCA damages sought in two federal complaints filed Oct. 21 and Oct. 23, 2026
Each column is one complaint's total claim against Anthropic; Reservoir's claim, filed two days earlier, covers more than three times the songs.
Sources: Music Business Worldwide [1]; RouteNote [2]. Chart by Ryan Elliott Dennis.
The numbers behind this chart
| Item | Value | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Reservoir (853) | $151.4 million | Filed Oct. 21, 2026 |
| Elvis estate (274) | $48.6 million | Filed Oct. 23, 2026 |
Each new filing names a bigger catalog than the one before it. Rights holders appear to be timing their suits around each other. Each case now leans on the one beside it.
The Fair-Use Fight Still Undecided
A nearly identical question already sat before a different judge. Fair use is the part of copyright law that lets someone copy a protected work under certain conditions. Courts weigh why someone copied it, how much they took, and whether the copy costs the owner money4.
Universal Music Publishing Group, Concord Music Group and ABKCO brought that question to Judge Eumi Lee. They want her to call Anthropic's training on their 499 songs copyright infringement.
Sonal Mehta argued Anthropic's side and said the publishers' case for harm to the business was thin. "There isn't anything in the record that shows doom for the music industry," Mehta said4.
Her defense rests on one word: harm. Prove the business lost money, and the fair-use defense loses. Skip that proof, and Anthropic wins on this question alone.
Lee heard both sides on Oct. 21 and took the motions under submission4. Judge William Alsup already found in 2025 that training Claude on books counts as fair use. Anthropic can lean on that precedent again.
The Elvis complaint raises two claims the book ruling skipped: bypassing site locks and stripping songwriter credits1. Both are new to a music case. Alsup's book ruling settles only part of the question Lee now has to answer.
What to Do
Publishers and songwriters should check their catalogs against the training sources these complaints name. Common Crawl and The Pile both turn up in the filings1. A match is grounds for a demand letter, or for joining a case already running.
Hold off filing a new claim until Judge Lee rules on Concord's 499 songs. Her decision sets the terms for every lyrics case that follows it, the Elvis estate's included4. A songwriter weighing a lawsuit against a licensing deal should read her ruling first. It will show which path actually pays.
By the Numbers
- 274 songs: the Elvis catalog named in the Oct. 23 complaint against Anthropic, among them "Return to Sender" and "A Little Less Conversation"1.
- $48.6 million: the complaint's combined ask across copyright and two Digital Millennium Copyright Act claims1.
- 853 songs: Reservoir Media's separate claim against Anthropic, filed two days before the Elvis estate's suit2.
- Six: music-copyright lawsuits filed against Anthropic since October 20231.
- $1.5 billion: Anthropic's 2025 book-author settlement, cited in the Elvis complaint and Anthropic's IPO filing16.
- $1.2 trillion: Anthropic's secondary-market valuation in July 2026, cited as evidence it can pay1.
What to Watch
Judge Lee's ruling on Concord's 499 songs comes first, and every later case will quote it4. A publisher win puts a price on lyrics as AI training data. An Anthropic win hands the company a second fair-use precedent to raise against the Elvis estate and Reservoir both.
Sources
- Mandy Dalugdug, "Rightsholders behind Elvis Presley's hits sue Anthropic for more than $48.6M, alleging it scraped lyrics to 274 songs and stripped songwriter credits to train Claude," Music Business Worldwide, Oct. 26, 2026, https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/rightsholders-behind-elvis-presleys-hits-sue-anthropic-for-more-than-48-6m-alleging-it-scraped-lyrics-to-274-songs-and-stripped-songwriter-credits-to-train-claude/
- Radar Team, "Reservoir Sues Suno and Anthropic Over AI Music Copyright, Seeking Nearly $338 Million," RouteNote, Oct. 26, 2026, https://routenote.com/radar/reservoir-sues-suno-and-anthropic-over-ai-music-copyright-seeking-nearly-338-million
- Matthew Hersh, "COPYRIGHT NEWS: On the eve of its IPO announcement, The King enters the ring against Anthropic," IP Law Daily (VitalLaw), Oct. 26, 2026, https://www.vitallaw.com/news/copyright-news-on-the-eve-of-its-ipo-announcement-the-king-enters-the-ring-against-anthropic/ipm01b8afda5a3f6e486da47f5c5395cfd964
- Christopher Wieduwilt, "Concord v. Anthropic: publishers cite almost 120,000 AI lyric prompts as Judge Lee weighs fair use," AI Musicpreneur, Oct. 22, 2026, https://www.aimusicpreneur.com/ai-music-news/concord-anthropic-fair-use-summary-judgment-hearing-october-2026/
- Zoe Papadakis, "Anthropic Sued for Alleged Copyright Infringement of Elvis Presley Songs," Yahoo News, Oct. 26, 2026, https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/articles/anthropic-sued-alleged-copyright-infringement-155131521.html
- Utkarsh Roshan, "Anthropic IPO risks: what the prospectus says," Invezz, Oct. 26, 2026, https://invezz.com/news/2026/10/26/anthropic-ipo-risks-what-the-prospectus-says/
- Reuters Legal, "Post on X reporting the Elvis Presley catalog owners' suit against Anthropic," Oct. 26, 2026, https://x.com/ReutersLegal/status/2114806816320196845
