Anthropic asks court for fair use

Anthropic has asked a federal judge in California to rule that training Claude on song lyrics is legal fair use. (billboard.com) In an April 20 brief, Anthropic said Claude learned from lyrics mixed in with “trillions of other words” so it could perform general tasks like coding, research and writing. The company said that makes the use “transformative,” a key fair-use concept in U.S. copyright law. (billboard.com) The case was filed in October 2023 by music publishers including Universal Music Publishing Group, Concord Music Group and ABKCO, and it centers on 499 songs in the Northern District of California before Judge Eumi K. Lee. Court records list the transferred complaint from October 18, 2023, and show the current case as 5:24-cv-03811. (courtlistener.com) The publishers moved for partial summary judgment on March 23, asking Judge Lee to reject Anthropic’s fair-use defense and rule that the company infringed their copyrights. They said the record includes 218 “undisputed facts” drawn from depositions, internal documents and Anthropic’s own admissions. (musicbusinessworldwide.com) Fair use is the rule that sometimes allows copying without permission when the new use serves a different purpose, like search, commentary or other transformed uses. Anthropic says AI training fits that rule; the publishers say copying full lyrics for a commercial chatbot does not. (billboard.com, musicbusinessworldwide.com) The fight has already produced one important ruling. On March 25, 2025, Judge Lee denied the publishers’ request for a preliminary injunction, saying they had not shown irreparable harm and that their proposed ban swept beyond the songs actually at issue. (musicbusinessworldwide.com) Judge Lee also wrote in that 2025 order that the court was being asked to define an AI-training licensing market before the threshold fair-use question had been settled. That left the core copyright issue for later briefing, which is where the new fair-use motion lands. (musicbusinessworldwide.com) The publishers are not backing down. A spokesperson told Billboard on April 21 that Anthropic’s filing was “wrong on the facts and the law,” and said they would answer in an opposition brief. (billboard.com) The lawsuit is also no longer the only music case hanging over Anthropic. In January 2026, the same publisher group filed a second suit alleging infringement tied to more than 20,000 songs and seeking more than $3 billion in statutory damages. (billboard.com, musicbusinessworldwide.com) Another major publisher joined the pressure campaign in March 2026, when BMG sued Anthropic over alleged use of unlicensed compositions including “7 Rings” and “Uptown Funk.” Anthropic did not immediately respond to Billboard’s request for comment in that case. (billboard.com) What Judge Lee does next could shape more than one dispute. A ruling on whether AI training on lyrics is fair use would reach beyond this 499-song case as music companies and AI firms keep filing new lawsuits over the same basic question. (billboard.com, musicbusinessworldwide.com)