Concord v. Anthropic: The Music Publishers' AI Lyrics Lawsuits, Explained

What is Concord v. Anthropic?

Concord v. Anthropic is 2 copyright lawsuits, brought by the same 3 music publishers against the same AI company, over the same songs.

The publishers are Concord Music Group, Universal Music Publishing Group and ABKCO Music. The defendant is Anthropic, the developer behind the Claude assistant. The claim in both cases is that Anthropic used their song lyrics without a licence.

The first case was filed on October 18, 2023. The second arrived on January 28, 2026 and seeks more than $3 billion. Both sit in the Northern District of California before Judge Eumi K. Lee, and both are live.

Why are music publishers suing Anthropic?

The 2023 case is about what Claude said. Publishers showed the court that asking Claude for the words to a song returned a near-identical copy of the lyric. The complaint used Katy Perry’s “Roar”, a Concord-controlled composition, as its example. Roughly 500 songs are covered.

The 2026 case is about how Anthropic got the material in the first place. That complaint alleges Anthropic downloaded lyrics and sheet music in bulk from pirate shadow libraries, covering more than 20,000 works. It is the same shape of allegation that produced Anthropic’s $1.5 billion settlement with book authors, applied to music.

Who is named in the lawsuits?

Concord Music Group controls catalogues including Rodgers & Hammerstein and songs recorded by Katy Perry and Beyoncé. Universal Music Publishing Group is the publishing arm of the largest music company in the world. ABKCO Music holds the early Rolling Stones catalogue and Sam Cooke.

On the other side, the 2026 complaint goes beyond the company. It names co-founder and CEO Dario Amodei and co-founder Benjamin Mann as individual defendants, on the theory that the people who directed the torrenting are personally liable for it.

Eight music bodies including the RIAA and the NMPA filed an amicus brief supporting the publishers in April 2026.

Why won’t Claude give you song lyrics?

This case is the reason.

On January 2, 2025, Judge Lee approved a joint stipulation. Anthropic agreed to keep the copyright guardrails it had already built running on its current models, and to apply equivalent guardrails to models it releases later. It can refine how they work, provided the changes do not materially reduce how well they stop unauthorised reproduction. If publishers think the guardrails are failing, they can say so in writing.

That agreement settled nothing about liability. It did decide what Claude does when you ask it for a lyric, and the answer has been no ever since.

What has the court decided so far?

Three things worth knowing.

The venue moved. Publishers filed in Nashville. On June 24, 2024 a Tennessee judge ruled the state was the wrong forum and transferred the case to California, where it became 5:24-cv-03811.

The injunction failed. In March 2025 Judge Lee denied the publishers’ request to block Anthropic from training on lyrics while the case ran. Coverage framed it as a win for AI companies, though the ruling turned on the absence of irreparable harm rather than on whether training is lawful.

The secondary claims narrowed. In October 2025 the court let the contributory, vicarious and DMCA claims proceed. Then the Supreme Court’s Cox decision tightened secondary liability, and in May 2026 the publishers dropped the vicarious claim themselves. They refiled in July 2026 with direct infringement and DMCA removal in front.

Where does the case stand now?

Anthropic is trying to shrink what is left. On August 5, 2026 it moved for partial dismissal on 2 fronts.

It wants the output-infringement claim gone, and it wants the whole DMCA count struck. Its DMCA argument rests on a definition:

The DMCA only prohibits removal of CMI from entire copyrighted works. Here, that means Publishers’ musical compositions, not solely the lyrics within them.

Anthropic adds that the publishers never allege it possessed those compositions, so there was no work to strip information from.

Amodei filed his own motion the same day, asking the court to drop the direct infringement claim against him personally. Judge Lee has not ruled on either.

Is this the same as the $1.5 billion Anthropic settlement?

No, and the two get confused constantly.

Bartz v. Anthropic was brought by book authors over pirated books used in training. Anthropic settled for $1.5 billion, and the court gave final approval in July 2026. That case is closed, apart from disputes over who is bound by it, including the music-business attorney Donald Passman, whose late opt-out was denied.

Concord v. Anthropic is about song lyrics, brought by music publishers. It has not settled. Both cases are live.

The overlap matters for one reason: the authors’ case established what these allegations are worth when a company loses. The publishers filed their $3 billion torrenting claim 4 months after Anthropic agreed to pay the authors.

What this means for you

If you write songs or hold publishing rights, the outcome sets the price of a lyrics licence. A publisher win means AI developers negotiate rather than scrape, and the number the court lands on becomes the reference every other developer works from.

If you use AI tools day to day, expect the guardrails to stay. Claude will keep refusing full lyrics, and other assistants have adopted the same posture without being sued, because the cost of guessing wrong is now measured in billions.

The claim to watch is the DMCA count. Most AI copyright fights argue about whether training is fair use, which is slow and unsettled. Stripping copyright management information is a narrower question with its own statutory penalty, and it does not require proving the output copied anything. If that claim survives Anthropic’s motion, it becomes the cheaper route for every rights holder that follows.

How this fits the bigger picture

Anthropic is the lyrics front of a fight running on several tracks at once. The record labels went after Suno and Udio over recordings. Germany’s GEMA won against Suno in Munich on July 31, 2026, the first European ruling that training on music needs a licence. Independent artists and the musicians’ union have their own suits running.

Every one of them asks the same question from a different angle: does an AI company have to pay for the music it learned from? Munich has answered yes. California has not answered at all.