Lyrics on Trial: A Fair-Use Hearing and Two New Suits Against Anthropic

Between October 21 and October 23, 2026, three things happened in AI and music courts. A federal judge heard fair-use arguments over song lyrics in the music publishers' 2023 case against Anthropic. Then music publisher Reservoir sued Anthropic and Suno, and the rightsholders behind Elvis Presley's songs sued Anthropic.

Anthropic is the company behind the Claude AI assistant. Nothing here has been decided. What follows is what each side argued or alleged, as reported by trade publications and legal outlets, which we list at the end.

October 21: The fair-use hearing

This is the oldest of the three cases. Universal Music Publishing Group, Concord and ABKCO sued Anthropic in October 2023 over the lyrics to roughly 500 songs, according to Music Business Worldwide (MBW). On October 21, Judge Eumi Lee heard arguments in San Jose on competing motions for summary judgment. Each side asked her to decide the question in its favor without a full trial.

Fair use lets some uses of copyrighted work go ahead without a license. Courts weigh four factors. The U.S. Copyright Office's fair use index describes the fourth as the effect of the use on the potential market for, or value of, the original work. That factor was the focus of the hearing, according to Complete Music Update (CMU) and Lawyer Monthly.

The publishers say Anthropic trained Claude to write new lyrics that compete with, and dilute the market for, human-written ones, and that Anthropic's refusal to license training harms the emerging market for AI licensing. Their lawyer, Matthew Oppenheim, pointed to nearly 120,000 requests for "synthetic lyrics" over six months, MediaNama and CMU report. Anthropic's lawyer, Sonal Mehta, argued that training is transformative and, as CMU quotes her, that "there isn't anything in the record that shows doom for the music industry." Anthropic has said more broadly that training AI models on copyrighted material "can and should be protected under U.S. fair use law," according to Digital Music News (DMN).

CMU's Chris Cooke wrote that the judge "seemed to want tangible evidence" of market dilution. He added that, against the roughly 30 million weekly users Anthropic is reported to have, the 120,000 figure "actually seems quite modest." Those are his readings of the hearing, not rulings.

Earlier decisions in the book-author cases show why this matters. CMU says the judge in the case against Anthropic said training is fair use only if the company began with legitimately sourced copies. In the Meta case, the judge accepted fair use but said market-dilution arguments could defeat it if better presented. Judge Lee did not rule from the bench, and the sources reviewed give no date for a decision.

CMU notes this hearing covered only the original lyrics case. The publishers' second suit, filed in January 2026 and covering more than 20,000 works according to MBW, was not part of it.

October 21: Reservoir files two suits

The same day, music publisher Reservoir filed two separate complaints in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. MBW, which obtained them, reports that one names Suno and covers 1,050 compositions, and the other names Anthropic and covers the lyrics to 853 compositions. Here is what was reported about them:

• Against Suno: Reservoir alleges the company copied the songs to train its models without permission. Citing a 404 Media report on leaked Suno source code, the complaint says Suno used proxy tools to scrape songs and lyrics from YouTube Music, Deezer and Genius. Suno has called the leaked code "outdated source code that is no longer in use at Suno."
• Against Anthropic: Reservoir alleges Claude was trained on the lyrics and can produce copies of them, and works based on them, when users ask.
• The licensing argument: Reservoir points to Suno's own licensing deals with Warner Music Group, BMG and Believe as proof that a market for licensing music to AI companies already exists, DMN reports. That goes straight to the market-effect factor above.
• The totals: if every claim won at the statutory maximum, the figures would be about $186 million for Suno and about $151 million for Anthropic, close to $340 million together.
• The response: Law Commentary reports that Anthropic disputes the allegations and intends to defend the suit vigorously. Nothing in either complaint has been tested in court.

October 23: The Presley rightsholders sue

Two days later, the rightsholders behind Elvis Presley's songs sued Anthropic in the same federal district over 274 songs. MBW reports that the lead plaintiff is ABG EPE IP LLC, part of Authentic Brands Group, joined by music publishers and family trusts tied to the catalog.

The complaint alleges Anthropic gathered lyrics "at an industrial scale" from the internet, including lyrics sites and large public datasets, and that Claude has produced infringing output for all 274 works. MBW notes the complaint does not set out an example of Claude reproducing or rewriting one of the 274 songs. The plaintiffs seek up to $41.1 million in statutory damages for infringement, plus separate DMCA damages, for a total of just over $48.6 million.

An Anthropic spokesperson told MBW: "We disagree with the claims and intend to defend this case fully."

Why songwriter credits are in these complaints

All three new complaints add counts under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) that are not about copying itself. One concerns "copyright management information." Under 17 U.S.C. 1202, that includes a work's title and the names of its author and copyright owner. Removing it on purpose, knowing it will help enable or hide an infringement, can be a violation on its own. Statutory damages run from $2,500 to $25,000 per violation (17 U.S.C. 1203).

The Presley plaintiffs allege that Anthropic tested at least three tools that pull text from web pages and picked the one that stripped copyright notices and owner names most thoroughly, in MBW's account of the complaint. Whether that is true, and whether it breaks the law, is for the court to decide. It does show why credits matter: a name attached to a lyric is evidence of who owns it.

The big totals are simple arithmetic. Each is the top figure for a type of claim multiplied by the number of works, such as $150,000 per work for willful infringement (17 U.S.C. 504). They show the most the plaintiffs can ask for. They are not a forecast.

What to watch

• A ruling on the summary-judgment motions in the 2023 case. No date has been reported.
• Anthropic's and Suno's formal responses to the Reservoir and Presley complaints.
• More fights over evidence of market harm. In Suno's cases, a magistrate judge on October 26 cleared Universal and Sony to question a former principal at Menlo Ventures, a Suno investor, over a deleted post saying she had shifted most of her listening to Suno. The labels link it to the same market-effect question, MBW reports.

What it means for songwriters and independent artists

Nobody has yet decided whether training an AI on lyrics is fair use. Courts have not settled the question, and each ruling so far has been one data point, like the ones we covered in the Third Circuit's ROSS decision and Germany's GEMA v. Suno ruling. Complaints are claims, not findings.

The practical lesson from the credit counts is that your name is part of your rights. Keep dated drafts of your lyrics, publish with your name and rights information attached, and make sure a song's writers stay credited wherever it travels. This is general information, not legal advice. If you think your work has been used without permission, talk to a music attorney.

If you record songs written by other people, the same habit applies. Every Starchild license comes with a certificate naming the writers, and anyone can check it at /verify. Our guide to the settlement wave explains the licensing deals that sit alongside these lawsuits.

Sources

• Music Business Worldwide: Reservoir sues Suno over 1,050 songs, and Anthropic over 853 lyrics
• Digital Music News: Reservoir Fires Off Infringement and DMCA Suits Against Suno and Anthropic, Demanding Nearly $340 Million in Total Damages
• Law Commentary: Suno and Anthropic Face Nearly $340 Million in Copyright Claims Over Songs by Madonna, Johnny Cash
• Music Business Worldwide: Rightsholders behind Elvis Presley's hits sue Anthropic for more than $48.6M
• Digital Music News: Elvis Presley IP Owners Sue Anthropic Over Allegations of Copyright Infringement
• Complete Music Update: Claude's lyrics are diluting real lyrics, say music publishers in latest Anthropic proceedings
• MediaNama: Is training AI on song lyrics fair use? US court weighs question as India proposes mandatory licensing
• Lawyer Monthly: Anthropic Faces Music Publishers in AI Copyright Fight
• Music Business Worldwide: Universal and Sony cleared to depose ex-Menlo Ventures exec over deleted post
• U.S. Copyright Office: Fair Use Index
• U.S. Copyright Office: Title 17, Chapter 12, Copyright Protection and Management Systems
• U.S. Copyright Office: Title 17, Chapter 5, Copyright Infringement and Remedies