The owners of Elvis Presley’s music are suing Anthropic for using the rock icon’s songs without permission to train AI models.

Much has been made of the theft component inherent in “training” artificial intelligence, known as AI, to duplicate original creative works. But appropriating the works of the King has turned out to be a bridge too far.

The suit was filed Friday in federal court in San Francisco by partnerships that control 274 of the late star’s most famous songs. The plaintiffs claim that Anthropic poured classics such as “All Shook Up,” “Can’t Help Falling in Love” and “Return To Sender” into its agent dubbed “Claude” without paying or seeking permission.

Claude has used the material to generate “unlicensed derivative works” of “some of the most groundbreaking, revolutionary, influential, and enduring musical compositions in human history,” states the lawsuit, according to Billboard, which was first to report it.

“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,” wrote lead attorney Richard Busch. “The Elvis Plaintiffs are deeply protective of these iconic songs.”

Even “Claude,” the AI “agent” being trained with the purloined material, admitted it, the plaintiffs alleged.

“These renders keep landing very close to the originals: same structure, same hooks reused with light rewording, and full sets of verses/choruses/bridges,” “Claude” said when asked to recreate certain songs. “That’s edging past ‘inspired by’ into reproducing the copyrighted song, even when the words are swapped out.”

The suit seeks $150,000 per song, amounting to about $41 million, according to Pitchfork.

“We disagree with the claims and intend to defend this case fully,” an Anthropic spokesperson said in a statement Sunday to several news outlets.

Anthropic has been sued by a slew of music publishers claiming copyright infringement, including most recently Round Hill, which also sued song generator Suno, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Other music copyright infringement cases have come from the Recording Industry Association of America and a recent case brought by Sony Music Publishing and Warner Chappell filed in August. But this is one of the first major legal challenges to an AI developer’s use brought directly by an artist’s estate, The Guardian reported.

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