Anthropic, a leading AI start-up, was founded in 2021 by a group of researchers who left Microsoft-backed OpenAI over a dispute over the company’s direction. It has drawn investments from Amazon and Google.
In addition to regurgitating lyrics, Claude responded to prompts asking for writing in the style of popular musicians with unlicensed lyrics, the music companies alleged. “When we asked the AI model to write a piece of short fiction in the style of Louis Armstrong, it uses the lyrics for ‘What a Wonderful World,’” the companies said in the filing.
The concern over AI technology has echoes of the music industry’s copyright battles in the 2000s against new technology services including Napster, which enabled pirating of music.
Universal, home to Taylor Swift and Billie Eilish, earlier on Wednesday announced a partnership with music platform BandLab to approach copyrights “ethically” for use in AI, with proper copyrights and permission.
Universal is separately working with Google to license its artists’ voices and melodies to be used in AI-generated songs, the Financial Times reported in August.
“Publishers embrace innovation and recognize the great promise of AI when used ethically and responsibly. But Anthropic violates these principles on a systematic and widespread basis,” the music groups said in Wednesday’s lawsuit.
Universal earlier this year asked Spotify and other streaming services to cut off access to its music catalogue for developers using it to train AI technology.
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