Elvis Presley rights holders sue Anthropic over AI training on 274 songs

Authentic Brands Group and other owners of Elvis Presley's catalog sued Anthropic in federal court in Northern California on Friday, alleging Claude was trained on lyrics from 274 Presley songs, including "Can't Help Falling in Love" and "Don't Be Cruel," without permission. The complaint seeks up to $150,000 per song, about $41 million, plus further damages for allegedly bypassing access controls and stripping writer credits, and asks that unlicensed copies be destroyed, including in model weights. It also claims Claude still produces close rewrites of the songs despite guardrails. Anthropic had not commented publicly.