The owners of Elvis Presley’s music catalog have sued artificial intelligence company Anthropic. They claim the company used Presley’s songs to train its AI models without permission.
Authentic Brands Group, which owns the rights to both Presley’s music and his likeness, filed the lawsuit on Friday. The case was first reported by Billboard.
The lawsuit accuses Anthropic of infringing on the rights to 274 songs by Presley. The works named include Can’t Help Falling in Love, All Shook Up and A Little Less Conversation.
What the Lawsuit Claims
The plaintiffs are asking for $150,000 for each song they say was infringed. That adds up to about $41 million, or roughly £31 million.
Lead attorney Richard Busch wrote that the case aims to enforce exclusive rights against a company “that has built its entire business model based on copyright infringement at a scale never seen before.”
The filing also claims that Anthropic’s AI model, Claude, has produced infringing output of “virtually every song from every catalog available on the internet” since it launched.
The lawsuit points to guardrails Anthropic put in place to limit outputs that copy music. The plaintiffs say these guardrails did not work and that the company knew this.
According to the filing, this shows that Anthropic “knowingly engaged and continues to willfully engage in copyright infringement of others’ musical works.”
A Growing List of Music Lawsuits
AI companies have already faced copyright claims from the Recording Industry Association of America. Music labels including Sony, Universal and Warner Records have also taken legal action against AI firms.
Anthropic has been sued over music before. Universal brought a case over song lyrics in 2023, and in August 2026 the company was sued over the alleged theft of “tens of thousands” of songs.
The Presley case is different because it was brought by an artist’s estate rather than a record label or industry group. It is one of the first major cases of its kind against an AI developer.
AI music tools work by studying large amounts of recorded music. They learn the sounds and structures of songs, then let users create new tracks using text or voice prompts.
Musicians have raised concerns many times that AI models use their music and voices without permission. Some also fear that low-quality AI-generated “slop” could replace songs made by people.
Some AI bots have also started pretending to be real, living artists on streaming services.
Last week, Spotify said it had removed about 50 million songs it considered AI slop from its user recommendations over the past year.
The Presley lawsuit, filed on Friday, seeks about $41 million in damages. Its outcome could set a precedent for how AI companies are allowed to use existing music catalogs.
