Sony Music Publishing and Warner Chappell, joined by other music publishers, sued Anthropic and co-founders Dario Amodei and Benjamin Mann in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, alleging illegal torrenting, scraping, and downloading of copyrighted lyrics and sheet music. The publishers seek up to $150,000 per work and $25,000 per instance of stripped copyright data, a total that could reach several billion dollars. The filing follows Anthropic's earlier $1.5 billion settlement in the Bartz case.
Who Sued Anthropic, and Where Was the Case Filed?
Sony Music Publishing and Warner Chappell, joined by numerous other music publishers, sued Anthropic and its co-founders in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of CaliforniaCITE:E1. The complaint names Anthropic as an entity and adds co-founders Dario Amodei and Benjamin Mann as individual defendants, alleging the AI lab conducted a "brazen campaign of illegally torrenting, scraping, and downloading copyrighted works"CITE:E10. The lawsuit was filed late Friday, August 28, 2026, and was first reported by Music Business WorldwideCITE:E11. The publishers are seeking damages for "tens of thousands" of copyrighted worksCITE:E1.
What Specific Piracy Methods Do the Publishers Allege?
The complaint accuses Anthropic of obtaining copyrighted material through both mass torrenting and direct scraping of licensed platformsCITE:E10. It alleges that Benjamin Mann personally used BitTorrent to download over five million pirated books, and that other Anthropic employees downloaded at least two million more from Pirate Library MirrorCITE:E5. Separately, the suit claims Anthropic scraped lyrics from MusixMatch and LyricFind, sites that had paid to license content from the labelsCITE:E6. The complaint names specific songs allegedly found in Anthropic's training data, including Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell's "Ain't No Mountain High Enough," Bon Jovi's "Livin' On a Prayer," Earth, Wind & Fire's "September," Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah," and Taylor Swift's "Paper Rings"CITE:E8. The publishers describe this filing as particularly broad, building on earlier cases by accusing Anthropic of "flagrant piracy" through illegal torrenting to obtain millions of book copies that include lyrics and sheet musicCITE:E14.
How Do the Plaintiffs Characterize the Case?
The Music Publishers describe the lawsuit as targeting "one of the largest and most blatant ongoing thefts of intellectual property in history"CITE:E7. In the complaint, the group states it is bringing the action "to hold accountable the culprits behind" that alleged theftCITE:E7.
How Much in Damages Are the Publishers Seeking?
The publishers are asking for up to $150,000 per copyrighted work, plus up to $25,000 for each instance in which identifiable copyright data was strippedCITE:E2. If a court rules fully in Sony and Warner's favor and awards the maximum amounts, the publishers state the total could reach several billion dollarsCITE:E3.
| Claim | Amount / Count | Evidence |
|---|
| Copyrighted works covered by the suit | "tens of thousands" | E1 |
| Per-work statutory damages sought | up to $150,000 | E2 |
| Damages per instance of stripped copyright data | up to $25,000 | E2 |
| Total potential damages if fully awarded | several billion dollars | E3 |
| Anthropic's prior publishing-industry settlement (Bartz case) | $1.5 billion | E4, E13 |
| Books Benjamin Mann allegedly BitTorrented | over 5 million | E5 |
| Additional books downloaded by employees | at least 2 million | E5 |
What Legal Precedent Frames This Lawsuit?
Anthropic had already paid $1.5 billion to settle a separate lawsuit brought by the publishing industry before this new suit was filedCITE:E4. That earlier case, Bartz v. Anthropic, ended with a judge ruling that while it was legal for Anthropic to use copyrighted works for training, it was not legal to acquire that content through piracyCITE:E13.
How Has Anthropic Responded?
Anthropic did not immediately respond to a request for commentCITE:E9. The company later told TechCrunch, "We disagree with the publishers' claims and we intend to defend ourselves robustly in court"CITE:E12.
What Does This Mean?
The new suit applies the same legal distinction drawn in the Bartz case — legal training versus illegal acquisition — to lyrics and sheet music, but adds a second theory beyond torrenting: scraping from platforms like MusixMatch and LyricFind that had already paid to license the same contentCITE:E6CITE:E13. With per-work damages capped at $150,000 and per-instance stripped-copyright damages capped at $25,000 across "tens of thousands" of works, the publishers' own math points to a potential total in the billions, a scale comparable to Anthropic's prior $1.5 billion settlementCITE:E1CITE:E2CITE:E3CITE:E4.