Nothin' But a Hound Dog: Lawsuit Claims Anthropic Used Hundreds of Elvis Presley Songs to Train AI

The owners of Elvis Presley’s music catalog have sued AI giant Anthropic, accusing it of infringing copyrights on 274 of the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll’s songs.

Billboard reports that a unit of Authentic Brands Group, which controls Elvis Presley’s song catalog, trademarks, and name, image and likeness rights, filed the suit. Other rights holders to Presley’s music joined as co-plaintiffs.

The suit names songs including “Can’t Help Falling in Love,” “A Little Less Conversation,” “Don’t Be Cruel,” “All Shook Up,” “Return to Sender” and “(You’re The) Devil in Disguise,” as being used by Anthropic to train its Claude AI.

Richard Busch, the lead attorney for the Presley estate plaintiffs, wrote in the filing that “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.” He added, “The Elvis Plaintiffs are deeply protective of these iconic songs.”

The lawsuit describes the material at issue as “some of the most groundbreaking, revolutionary, influential, and enduring musical compositions in human history,” and alleges that Anthropic’s AI training produced “unlicensed derivative works.”

Industry experts consider this the most high-profile AI legal action filed on behalf of an individual musician to date. Anthropic did not respond to a request for comment on Saturday.

Busch has handled other high-stakes music copyright disputes before. He represented Eminem in digital download cases in the 2000s, and he represented Marvin Gaye’s estate against Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams over “Blurred Lines,” which borrowed from Gaye’s “Got to Give It Up.” A jury sided with Gaye’s estate.

This is the latest in a stack of lawsuits against Anthropic, which already faces other suits over its AI training practices from across the creative industries, including from music publishers. Universal Music Group and other music companies have sued AI companies on similar grounds before.

Suno, a leading AI song generator, was sued in 2024 by all three major music companies over how its technology was trained. Suno settled with Warner Music Group last year but remains in litigation with Universal Music Group and Sony Music.

AI companies have responded to these cases by arguing that their training processes are protected under copyright’s fair use defense. That question hasn’t been settled yet, and it’s sitting at the center of dozens of pending lawsuits with billions of dollars in potential damages riding on the outcome.

The legal war over the usage of copyrighted works by AI giants impacts every author, creator, and media company in the country. Like all aspects of AI, its application in creating media presents opportunities and landmines. Breitbart News social media director Wynton Hall has written his instant bestseller Code Red: The Left, the Right, China, and the Race to Control AI to serve as the definitive guide on how the MAGA movement can create positions on AI that benefit humanity without handing control of our nation to the leftists of Silicon Valley or allowing the Chinese to take over the world.