{"id":105348,"date":"2025-07-21T12:39:05","date_gmt":"2025-07-21T11:39:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/routenote.com\/blog\/?p=105348"},"modified":"2025-07-21T12:39:08","modified_gmt":"2025-07-21T11:39:08","slug":"could-anthropics-ai-copyright-case-be-a-win-for-the-music-industry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/routenote.com\/blog\/could-anthropics-ai-copyright-case-be-a-win-for-the-music-industry\/","title":{"rendered":"Could Anthropic’s AI copyright case be a win for the music industry?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Image credits: Tara Winstead<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A US court ruling on AI and copyright might seem like a win for AI companies, but it could come at a cost that actually gives creative rightsholders the upper hand.<\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Anthropic\u2019s legal victory, with a catch<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Last month, AI company Anthropic walked away from a lawsuit with what seemed like a major win, according to the CompleteMusicUpdate<\/a>. A US judge ruled that it was fair use to train a generative AI model using legitimately sourced copyrighted books.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was one of the first major rulings around AI training data and copyright. It\u2019s a decision that may have far-reaching implications across creative industries, including music. While Anthropic celebrated the win, the case also opened the door to potential damages in excess of a trillion dollars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fair use – but with an exception<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Anthropic trained its Claude AI model using a massive data set, with millions of pirated books being used. That\u2019s where things get messy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the landmark case, US judge William Alsup clarified that while using copyrighted material can qualify for fair use, it must be attained legitimately and not through pirated content. He likened the lawsuit to the music industry\u2019s struggle with Napster in the early-days of streaming. In his words, Anthropic \u201cviolated the Copyright Act by doing Napster-style downloading of millions of works\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Crucially, Alsup also said that the fair use defence could apply in this case partly because the AI-generated outputs were “spectacularly transformative\u201d. This concept is crucial in US law when looking at the fair use defence in copyright infringement. So not only must the training data be legally sourced, but the resulting content must also significantly differ from the original to qualify as fair use.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because of the scale of the pirated content involved, the lawsuit has now been upgraded to a class action lawsuit. This means that Anthropic could face claims from up to seven million authors, with US law allowing each author to claim damages of up to $150,000 per infringement. That adds up quickly, and could mean damages in excess of one trillion dollars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, while AI companies could claim the fair use defence to train models on copyrighted content- the content must be attained legally and create outputs that are significantly transformative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Relevance to the music industry<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

While it remains unclear whether this ruling will apply universally across the creative industries, it could have strong implications in the music world. After all, the music industry has also accused AI companies of using their songs to train generative music tools without proper licensing or rightsholder permission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In fact, Anthropic is already being sued by music publishers. Major record labels are going after AI music generators<\/a> Udio and Suno, with the latter also being sued by GEMA<\/a> (a collecting society), and a musician fighting for indie artists<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Musician brings the fight to Suno and Udio for indie music<\/a><\/blockquote>