Universal Music Publishing, Concord and ABKCO have responded to AI company Anthropic's attempt to have a copyright lawsuit they filed against it dismissed on jurisdiction grounds. Their lawsuit was filed in Tennessee, but Anthropic reckons any legal battle should be fought in its home state of California. "Anthropic claims that it is subject to jurisdiction only in its Silicon Valley backyard”, the publishers note in a new legal filing, “that is plainly wrong".
They argue that Anthropic hires employees and signs up customers in Tennessee; specifically trains its chatbot Claude to ensure it knows about shopping options, tourist spots and dancing opportunities in the state; and even has Claude regurgitate copyright protected lyrics to Tennessean users.
Anthropic is accused of infringing the copyright in the publishers’ lyrics. First, by using them to train AI chatbot Claude without getting permission. And secondly, by having Claude spit out their lyrics in response to simple prompts. Anthropic argues that AI training is fair use, meaning no permission is required, and insists it has put safeguards in place to stop the publishers' lyrics appearing in messages generated by Claude.
However, in its initial response to the publishers' lawsuit last November, the AI firm didn't dwell too much on copyright matters, instead arguing that Tennessee was the wrong jurisdiction for the litigation. The court, it said, should dismiss the lawsuit on that basis. Or transfer the case to California, where most of the other lawsuits testing the copyright obligations of AI companies have been filed.
Having set out all of their objections to that request, the publishers new legal filing concludes “we respectfully request that the court deny Anthropic’s motion in full".