Elvis Presley's Estate Sues Anthropic Over AI Training on 274 Songs, Seeks $41 Million

The rights holders to Elvis Presley's music have sued Anthropic, the maker of the Claude model. According to Engadget, citing The New York Times, the lawsuit was filed on October 23, 2026, and concerns the training of AI models on the artist's songs without permission.

What the lawsuit alleges

The plaintiffs are owners and beneficiaries of the Presley catalog: Authentic Brands Group, Raleigh Music Publishing, several trusts and at least one individual. They are represented by Richard Busch. Engadget does not say which court the suit was filed in.

There are three allegations. Anthropic is accused of training its models on the songs without permission, bypassing DRM protections, and removing or altering copyright management information. The list of songs includes "Don't Be Cruel," "Can't Help Falling in Love" and "A Little Less Conversation."

The Elvis Plaintiffs bring this action to enforce these exclusive rights against the Defendant that has built its entire business model based on copyright infringement at a scale never seen before. - Richard Busch, lead attorney for the plaintiffs

Anthropic's response

In a short statement to Engadget, the company said it disagrees with the claims and intends to defend the case fully. According to Engadget, Anthropic has previously argued that training AI models on copyrighted music constitutes fair use.

At this stage, these are only the plaintiffs' allegations. No court has ruled on whether training models on these songs infringed any rights.

Another music front

Engadget notes that Sony and Warner recently sued Anthropic over thousands of works, calling it a blatant violation of copyright law. Earlier, Universal Music and Concord Music Group filed a similar claim over 20,000 songs. Each of these cases involves damages in the billions of dollars.

Engadget points out that this case stands out because it centers on a single artist who died long before modern AI existed. OpenAI and other companies developing models face similar lawsuits.

What it means for the industry

For Polish companies building products on generative models, this is another sign that disputes over training data are moving from text and images to music. The outcome of such cases could affect content licensing terms and the legal risk of using these models.

For now, Anthropic says it will defend the case fully. Until then, all that exists are the positions of the parties.