Anthropic hits back at music publishers in AI copyright lawsuit, accusing them of ‘volitional conduct’

Anthropic, a major generative AI startup, has responded to accusations of copyright infringement from music publishers and content owners, arguing that its use of song lyrics to train its AI models constitutes fair use under the law and has no substantially adverse impact on the market for copyrighted works.

The filing from Anthropic points to the plaintiffs’ volitional conduct in causing its AI model Claude to produce the infringing content, challenging the control and responsibility for the infringement.

The copyright battle in the generative AI industry is intensifying, with debates around fair use, harm-based defenses, and the need for negotiations to satisfy all involved as generative AI matures.