A California federal court has rejected an injunction request from music publishers in their ongoing copyright dispute with Anthropic. The injunction aimed to prevent the AI company from utilizing song lyrics to train its chatbot, Claude. Although the music publishers initially filed the lawsuit in late 2023, this ruling marks a significant setback for them. However, it is essential to note that this decision is merely one aspect of a more extensive and complex legal battle between AI companies and copyright holders.

In October 2023, Concord, ABKCO Music & Records, and Universal Music initiated the lawsuit against Anthropic, claiming that Claude’s responses to user queries often included content identical or nearly identical to song lyrics. As the copyright holders, the music publishers argue that such use of their songs does not constitute fair use under U.S. copyright law.

According to court documents published by Court Listener, U.S. District Judge Eumi Lee stated that the publishers’ attempt to clarify their request by including 500 allegedly used songs was insufficient. This was because the list was “illustrative and non-exhaustive,” and the publishers could not specify the total number of songs that would be subject to the injunction.

The ruling further emphasized that the injunction would apply not only to the songs currently owned by the publishers but also to an unknown number of songs they may acquire in the future. Moreover, the publishers would have the authority to “update” the list by adding or removing songs as necessary, without providing a concrete or definitive way for Anthropic to ascertain the parameters of the injunction or comply with its terms.

Anthropic expressed satisfaction with the ruling, believing that their use of song lyrics should be considered fair use. A spokesperson for the company stated, “We are pleased that the court did not grant the plaintiffs’ disruptive and amorphous request for interim relief in this case. As 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.”

Despite losing this round, the copyright holders remain confident in their case. A representative for the publishers stated, “Despite the Court’s narrow ruling, we remain very confident in our case against Anthropic more broadly.” The statement continued, “In response to our preliminary injunction motion, Anthropic had already conceded the merits of our claims against its infringing outputs of our copyrighted song lyrics, by entering into a stipulation requiring it to maintain ‘guardrails’ to prevent such infringing outputs, thereby resolving a critical aspect of the motion in our favor. The Court noted this factor as an important part of its preliminary decision.”