A federal judge has questioned music publishers’ allegations that Claude reproduced lyrics from 20,517 works, without resolving Anthropic’s motion to dismiss.
In a November 6 order, U.S. District Judge Eumi K. Lee said the publishers had not alleged a specific output reproducing any of those works. Their hearing statements appeared to ask her to infer output infringement from alleged training use.
That concern addresses the pleading of direct output infringement, not a finding that Claude never copied lyrics or that training was lawful. Anthropic argues the allegations lack concrete examples.
Lee also confirmed that she granted Dario Amodei’s dismissal motion at the November 4 hearing, with permission to amend. The publishers need not amend until Anthropic’s motion is resolved.
The parties must continue discussions and submit a status report by November 13. The case is Concord Music Group, Inc. et al. v. Anthropic PBC et al., No. 5:26-cv-00880-EKL.
For music publishers and media-rights owners, the practical distinction is between alleging copying into training data and identifying copying in generated outputs. This is a pleading dispute, not a broad fair-use precedent.
Related: Elvis song rights holders’ separate Anthropic lawsuit.