Universal Music Sues AI Startup Anthropic For Scraping Song Lyrics (arstechnica.com) 32
Universal Music has filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against artificial intelligence start-up Anthropic, as the world's largest music group battles against chatbots that churn out its artists' lyrics. From a report: Universal and two other music companies allege that Anthropic scrapes their songs without permission and uses them to generate "identical or nearly identical copies of those lyrics" via Claude, its rival to ChatGPT. When Claude is asked for lyrics to the song "I Will Survive" by Gloria Gaynor, for example, it responds with "a nearly word-for-word copy of those lyrics," Universal, Concord, and ABKCO said in a filing with a US court in Nashville, Tennessee.
"This copyrighted material is not free for the taking simply because it can be found on the Internet," the music companies said, while claiming that Anthropic had "never even attempted" to license their copyrighted work. The lawsuit comes as the music industry is grappling with the rise of AI technology that can produce "deepfake" songs that mimic the voices, lyrics, or sound of established musicians. The issue drew attention earlier this year after an AI-produced song that mimicked the voices of Drake and The Weeknd spread online.
"This copyrighted material is not free for the taking simply because it can be found on the Internet," the music companies said, while claiming that Anthropic had "never even attempted" to license their copyrighted work. The lawsuit comes as the music industry is grappling with the rise of AI technology that can produce "deepfake" songs that mimic the voices, lyrics, or sound of established musicians. The issue drew attention earlier this year after an AI-produced song that mimicked the voices of Drake and The Weeknd spread online.
Google already won this already (Score:5, Interesting)
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US Supreme Court lets Google win stand against Genius suit over song lyrics
Genius does not hold copyrights in the lyrics, which usually belong to the artists or publishers. But it accused Google of violating its terms of service by stealing and reposting its work. https://www.reuters.com/legal/... [reuters.com]
Universal Music sues AI start-up Anthropic for scraping song lyrics
Universal Music has filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against artificial intelligence st
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Google's case was different in that they had licensed the lyrics from the actual copyright holder.
The site which sued Google alleging that Google had copied from them was not the copyright holder. Although they had licensed the lyrics from the copyright holder for purposes of publishing them on their website, they did not have the right to prevent anyone else from also publishing the lyrics -that right remained with the copyright holder.
The court found that, as both the website and Google had licenses from
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Sued for providing song lyrics (Score:5, Funny)
Damn, now how am I supposed to figure out what they're saying in the latest mumble rap songs?
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the only winning move is not to play.
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There's a difference between Drake and The Weeknd? Maybe I'm not properly schooled in the fire arts of such items, but it all sounds the same to me.
TFA mentions "music" and "songs". Some might question rather the recording efforts of The Weeknd and (especially) Drake qualify...
BTW, there's lots of modern pop music that I love - Bruno Mars produces outstanding stuff, some of Ed Sheeran's songs are really terrific, etc. But there's a huge amount of simplistic boring lyrics, unimaginative compositions, and maIl-it-in-and-let-autotune-fix-it singing. Is that you, Drake?
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Simplistic, unimaginative, lyrics. You mean like "Greensleeves"?
Most song lyrics are simplistic. Some are imaginative anyway, and occasionally the imaginativeness even improves the song. (The ones that aren't simplistic are usually unintelligible.)
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There was only ever one rap song written and performed about 40 or so years ago. Now we just get samples of it...in exciting surround sound.
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Damn, now how am I supposed to figure out what they're saying in the latest mumble rap songs?
Forget about current music.
Maybe it can finally figure out the lyrics to Louie Louie [todayinhistory.blog].
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I don't give a damn about what they have to say, I'd rather listen to instrumental rock.
MAFIAA (Score:2)
MAFIAA
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ANSWER: none of us
Incorrect. You would have infringed on it. The site you got the lyrics may it may not have done. The search engine has not. This is supported by case law.
Sue DeWalt and Makita (Score:1)
DeWalt and Makita make tools. You can assemble or disassemble things with them. Some people use their angle grinders and may injure themselves or others. Does that make DeWalt or Makita liable, or the person who chose to use it in such a manner?
Anthropic provides a tool -- Claude. It sits there lonely by itself doing nothing, infringing nothing, committing no crimes.
Then someone ("the perp") asks it for the song lyrics.. As any good intelligent search engine would do, it spits out the lyrics.
Nothing ha
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Remembering a song is a crime? (Score:2)
Dear content-mafia, you're crazy.
Uhh (Score:1)
"This copyrighted material is not free for the taking simply because it can be found on the Internet," the music companies said, while claiming that Anthropic had "never even attempted" to license their copyrighted work.
Nothing is being "taken" as that implies the original holder no longer has it in their possession - which is categorically untrue.
To factually spit out what the lyrics to a song are requires no license and does not require listening to said song.
And spitting out lyrics similar to, but different doesn't require a license either - see Weird Al. Not to mention, it's just lyrics. There is no actual music or tune or anything else. And even THEN, unless someone where to take these lyrics, put them to a similar to
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1) Weird Al invariably has artist and label permission. Invariably. To argue that the existence of his songs says anything about a litigable copyright dispute is moronic.
2) It doesn't matter how you're "spitting out the lyrics to a song," you're distributing them. And it 100% requires a license, unless, of course, you're attempting to claim fair use, to
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1) Weird Al does but he isn't required to.
2) Greenspan's behavior lost them that case. I don't know enough about how his website(s) functioned - I assume he was making money on ads or something along the lines where the lyrics were hosted, and that financial gain was the actual issue.
3) Seeing as the music industry continuously sees this and other non-theft related activities as theft...totally appropriate for me to do so.
4) Correct. But still no case here either. But Universal will probably wave big dick m
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Postulating whether his permissions are necessary without reference to case law or verdicts is even worse.
It's not. He has said so himself in interviews that he doesn't need to get permission but does anyway, and won't do it if the original artist says no. That's his own integrity - something which anyone working at Universal, and most lawyers, lack, but that is besides the point.
Yes, appropriate for you to reach for strawman arguments, I agree.
I can attack both their argument and the people because they deserve to attacked, regardless of your opinion on the matter.
Let us know when you've got a law degree and a couple minutes' copyright experience, then perhaps your view of "no case" will be relevant. Go ahead- find me ONE copyright lawsuit where Universal Music Group hasn't survived a motion to dismiss. After all, that's the measure of "no case," but someone as well-versed in the law as yourself must be aware of that. And able to use a simple public legal database to turn up such a dismissal if it exists.... which it doesn't.
The problem isn't the degree or the experience. It's money. They can outlast pretty much anyone. It would be eas
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And you are just an AC who hasn't actually said anything usefully relevant. You keep latching on to the wrong points to explain things that don't matter and ask irrelevant questions.
Good (Score:1)