It is a company specializing in artificial intelligence, created in 2021 by former employees of OpenAI, the designer of ChatGPT. Anthropic now finds itself in the dock: it is accused of having used copyrighted lyrics to develop its AI products.
Several record companies, including Universal, have launched lawsuits in the United States against Anthropic. The appeal, consulted by AFP, was filed on Wednesday October 18 in a federal court in Tennessee. The plaintiffs are demanding a trial before a jury and up to $150,000 per song used without authorization from the rights holders, which could represent tens of millions of dollars.
The record companies claim that when its Claude 2 interface is questioned by a user about the lyrics of hits like I Will Survive by Gloria Gaynor or Halo by Beyoncé, the artificial intelligence tool provides responses containing “entire texts or large portions”.
The plaintiffs also accuse the chatbot of tapping into copyrighted content even when it does not receive a specific request to do so, in particular when it is directed to write a song on a specific theme or in the style of a real artist.
Google, Amazon… Anthropic arouses desire
They also argue that Anthropic “profits greatly” from these works. “Yet Anthropic pays nothing to publishers, authors or the countless copyright owners whose copyrighted works Anthropic uses to train its AI systems.” Asked by AFP, Anthropic did not immediately react.
The Californian start-up arouses desire. Google invested $300 million at the beginning of the year to acquire 10% of the company. On September 25, Amazon announced an investment of up to $4 billion in Anthropic.
Amazon developers and engineers will be able, thanks to Anthropic models, to incorporate artificial intelligence capabilities and create new Internet experiences for Amazon customers, across all its activities, the company said in its communicated.
Numerous prosecutions launched
This action against Anthropic comes in the wake of similar lawsuits launched by creators against companies specializing in so-called generative AI – which makes it possible to create original content, drawing on a large quantity of data – for having used their works without their consent.
George RR Martin, author of the saga Game Of Thronesand other writers launched federal lawsuits last September in New York against OpenAI, which they accuse of having used their works to create ChatGPT in violation of their copyrights.
Many other complaints have already been filed by artists, organizations and coders against OpenAI and its competitors. In early September 2023, Microsoft, OpenAI’s main investor, announced that it would provide legal protection to its customers sued for copyright infringement on content generated with its generative AI tools.