{"id":4924,"date":"2025-03-26T15:36:16","date_gmt":"2025-03-26T15:36:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/umg-cant-stop-ai-training-in-anthropic-copyright-lawsuit-judge-rules\/"},"modified":"2025-03-26T15:36:16","modified_gmt":"2025-03-26T15:36:16","slug":"umg-cant-stop-ai-training-in-anthropic-copyright-lawsuit-judge-rules","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/umg-cant-stop-ai-training-in-anthropic-copyright-lawsuit-judge-rules\/","title":{"rendered":"UMG Can’t Stop AI Training In Anthropic Copyright Lawsuit, Judge Rules"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n

\n\tA<\/span> federal judge has refused Universal Music Group\u2019s request for an injunction that would have immediately blocked artificial intelligence company Anthropic PBC from using copyrighted lyrics to train future AI models.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn decision issued Tuesday, Judge Eumi K. Lee<\/strong> ruled that it remained an \u201copen question\u201d whether using copyrighted materials to train AI is illegal \u2013 meaning UMG and other music companies could not show that they faced the kind of \u201cirreparable harm\u201d necessary to win such a drastic remedy.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cPublishers are essentially asking the court to define the contours of a licensing market for AI training where the threshold question of fair use remains unsettled,\u201d the judge wrote. \u201cThe court declines to award publishers the extraordinary relief of a preliminary injunction based on legal rights \u2026 that have not yet been established.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe ruling was not on the actual merits of the case, but it represents a victory for Anthropic \u2014 which likely would have needed to overhaul its training operations if the judge had sided with UMG. The case will now proceed ahead, likely with a motion by Anthropic seeking to dismiss the case entirely.<\/p>\n

\n\tAn attorney for UMG and the other music companies did not immediately return a request for comment on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

\n\tUMG and other music publishers sued Anthropic in 2023, claiming the company was violating copyrights en masse by using songs without authorization to teach its Claude AI models how to spit out new lyrics. Anthropic denies the allegations, saying its training is a so-called \u201cfair use\u201d of copyright materials.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe case is one of many lawsuits, filed by authors, newspapers, musicians and other creatives, that will test whether AI companies are breaking the law by taking the fundamental step in creating their technology \u2013 a potentially trillion-dollar question in the booming industry.<\/p>\n

\n\tA month after UMG filed its case, the music giant demanded a preliminary injunction \u2013 type of interim ruling that would prohibit the AI firm from continuing to use the songs while the case plays out in court. \u201cIf the court waits until this litigation ends to address what is already clear\u2014that Anthropic is improperly using publishers\u2019 copyrighted works\u2014then the damage will be done.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBut in Tuesday\u2019s decision, Lee said UMG and the other music companies couldn\u2019t show such harm because that key question in the case \u2013 the trillion-dollar issue of fair use \u2013 has not been reached by a final ruling, either in the current lawsuit against Anthropic or in any of the other case against AI firms.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201c[Earlier] cases demonstrate that emerging technologies often test the bounds and principles of copyright law,\u201d the judge wrote. \u201cHere, it is an open question whether training generative AI models with copyrighted material is infringement or fair use.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tEven if the legal question was settled, Lee said that any harm caused by Anthropic\u2019s use of the lyrics could later be compensated by a monetary judgment, meaning it was not the kind of irreversible damage that must be stopped before the case plays out.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn a statement to Billboard <\/em>on Wednesday, a spokeswoman for Anthropic said the company was pleased that the judge had rejected UMG\u2019s \u201cdisruptive and amorphous request\u201d for an immediate injunction: \u201cAs the case continues, we look forward to explaining why use of copyrighted material for training large language models aligns with fair use principles under copyright law.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A federal judge has refused Universal Music Group\u2019s request for an injunction that would have immediately blocked artificial intelligence company Anthropic PBC from using copyrighted lyrics to train […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4925,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[3108,429,423,303,351,2269,588,1109],"class_list":["post-4924","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawyers","tag-anthropic","tag-copyright","tag-judge","tag-lawsuit","tag-rules","tag-stop","tag-training","tag-umg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4924","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4924"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4924\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}