Copyright Battle Progress
Universal Music Group and other music publishers made significant progress in their copyright battle with artificial intelligence company Anthropic as a court approved protections, or “guardrails,” for AI-generated song lyrics.
UMG, along with other publishers including Musical group Concord and ABKCO, sued Anthropic in 2023 on charges of copyright infringement.
The group said Anthropic has trained its artificial intelligence system Claude according to the texts of at least 500 songs by famous performers, including Katy Perry, The Rolling Stones, and Beyoncé, and sought US$150,000 in damages for each violation.
Publishers expressed satisfaction with the court’s decision to impose these “guards,” seeing it as vindication of their claims against Anthropic’s AI chatbot Claude for the unauthorized reproduction of copyrighted song lyrics.
Implementation of Safeguards
These measures require Anthropic to maintain various safeguards in its current AI models and implement similar safeguards in future major language models and product offerings.
“In the future, Anthropic will need to support various constraints in its Claude AI models, as well as implement those constraints in future major language models and product offerings.”
Universal Music Group
“We are pleased that the court has approved these important ‘guardrails’—measures Anthropic must take to protect copyrighted content by preventing copyright infringement of copyrighted song lyrics—effectively recognizing the validity of our claims against copyright infringers Claude’s materials,” UMG stated on behalf of other publishers in a statement issued to MBW.
“Under the terms of the agreement, Anthropic will be required to support various constraints in its Claude AI models in the future, as well as implement these constraints in future major language models and product offerings.”
While welcoming Anthropic’s agreement to this provision as a “positive step forward,” the publishers emphasized that their legal battle continues. A key aspect of their lawsuit remains unresolved—specifically, their request for a preliminary injunction aimed at preventing Anthropic from using the publishers’ texts for future training of artificial intelligence models.
“While Anthropic’s position is a positive step forward, this litigation is still ongoing, and the publishers’ motion for a preliminary injunction aimed at preventing Anthropic from using the publishers’ texts for the future training of artificial intelligence models is still pending before the court.” – said UMG.
The court-approved agreement establishes a mechanism for publishers to notify Anthropic if they discover instances where protective measures fail to prevent unauthorized reproduction of their copyrighted texts. Under these terms, Anthropic must promptly respond to and investigate such allegations, working “in good faith” with publishers to resolve any issues identified.
“Anthropic will ultimately provide a detailed written response indicating when and how Anthropic will address the issue identified in the Publisher Notice, or Anthropic will clearly state its intent not to address the issue,” according to the provision and the proposed order issued by Judge Yumi K. Lee, United States District Court for the Northern District of California.
“Ultimately, Anthropic will provide a detailed written response indicating when and how Anthropic will address the issue identified in the Publisher Notice, or Anthropic will clearly state its intent not to address the issue.”
Judge Yumi K. Lee, United States District Court for the Northern District of California
In August, Anthropic filed a motion with the court to dismiss charges brought against it by music publishers. It also asked the court to overturn claims of “contributory” copyright infringement, “indirect” copyright infringement, and “removal or alteration of copyright management information,” which is a violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).
Subsequently, in September, Universal, Concord, and ABKCO urged the court to deny the motion to dismiss.
As part of the lawsuit, Anthropic received another $4 billion investment from the giant of online trading and web services Amazon at the end of November. This brings Amazon’s total investment in Anthropic to $8 billion when combined with the $4 billion investment announced in September 2023.
