Anthropic Sued Over 500 Songs in Amended Lyrics Lawsuit

Concord Music Group, Universal Music Publishing Group, and ABKCO Music have filed an amended lawsuit against Anthropic. They allege Anthropic's Claude chatbot copied copyrighted song lyrics. This updated complaint was filed on Wednesday, July 22nd, in California. What's interesting is this expanded complaint covers about 500 songs. It's the first of two copyright lawsuits these publishers have against Anthropic. A separate suit, filed in January 2026, involves over 20,000 songs and seeks more than $3 billion. The complaint uses Anthropic's own internal records to support its claims. For example, it highlights an internal query where an Anthropic co-founder asked Claude for lyrics to Bob Dylan's "Desolation Row." The publishers argue this shows Anthropic designed its AI models to reproduce copyrighted lyrics. They also claim Anthropic used tools to remove copyright notices from lyrics during training. The bottom line is that the publishers seek to hold Anthropic responsible for what they call "systematic and widespread infringement" of their lyrics. This ongoing legal battle could significantly impact how AI models handle copyrighted content.