Universal Music Group (UMG), Concord Publishing, and ABKCO Music & Records have launched a lawsuit against Anthropic, accusing them of committing direct, vicarious, and contributory copyright infringement when training its AI chatbot, Claude. The lawsuit, filed in the Nashville Division of the United States District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee on October 18, claims that Anthropic "unlawfully" copied and disseminated "vast amounts of copyrighted works - including the lyrics to myriad musical compositions" that are owned or controlled by the publishers. It described Anthropic's use of the works as "widespread and systematic infringement" and held that the defendant lacked the necessary authorization to copy, distribute, and exhibit works protected by copyright in order to establish a business. The lawsuit also accuses Anthropic of removing the copyright management information utilized by the publishers in association with the works.