The Majors Just Asked a Judge to Scrap Anthropic's Fair Use Defense Entirely

Universal Music Publishing Group, Concord, and ABKCO are tired of fighting about scraping. On Tuesday, the publishers filed a motion in federal court asking a judge to preemptively rule that Anthropic violated their copyrights and throw out any "fair use" defense.

The publishing giants claim Claude is not a language model that learned from lyrics, but an unlicensed lyric provider that reproduces their property on demand. While earlier AI lawsuits debated whether indexing the public internet counts as fair use, this case escalates the allegations entirely. The publishers argue Anthropic built Claude on a foundation of illegally downloaded files from "shadow libraries" and notorious piracy sites to bypass licensing.

A different federal judge recently ruled Anthropic's training on books was "quintessentially transformative," siding with tech over creators. The publishers are working to make sure the music industry does not inherit that precedent. They are framing Claude as a market replacement that dilutes the value of songwriters' work. If successful, the motion prevents Anthropic from defending itself with fair use at trial.