Universal Music sues Anthropic.

Universal, Concord and ABKCO have filed a copyright lawsuit against AI startup Anthropic, alleging that Anthropic's chatbot Claude scrapes and regurgitates the studios’ lyrics without permission.

What’s going on here?

Universal Music group sues Anthropic for generating identical song lyrics.

What does this mean?

Universal alleges Anthropic's Claude chatbot copies lyrics word-for-word when prompted, violating copyrights. Anthropic has not properly licensed or attempted to license the lyrics, Universal claims.

Universal is separately working with Google to license its catalogue for AI songs and partnered with BandLab for ethical AI use of its copyrights. It has also asked Spotify to cut off AI developers' access to its catalogue.

Why should I care?

This reminds the industry of the Napster days. But much of the perspective isn’t anti-AI, it’s more anti-piracy. The other deals and the claims in the lawsuit hint that the group just want to be paid for the license. But how much is the big question, I guess.