Judge hears fair-use arguments in Concord Music v. Anthropic

Judge Eumi Lee heard cross-motions for summary judgment Oct. 21 in Concord Music Group v. Anthropic, the music publishers’ suit over Claude’s training on copyrighted lyrics, per Courthouse News Service. Publishers’ attorney Matthew Oppenheim argued Claude reproduces lyrics “sometimes verbatim” and that generating stylistically similar “synthetic” songs competes with human songwriters; Anthropic’s attorney Sonal Mehta countered that users, not Anthropic, bear responsibility for prompts, and that such outputs are independently copyrightable. Lee did not rule from the bench. The wire flagged the hearing date Sept. 16; it is the first district judge to hear fair-use summary judgment arguments in an AI-training case since the Bartz and Kadrey rulings, more than a year and a half ago.