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Music Publishers' Nashville Lawsuit Over Alleged Use of Lyrics in AI Generative Program Is Sent to California Federal Court

In a closely watched AI litigation in which major music publishers sued over Anthropic PBC's alleged use of the plaintiffs' lyrics to train its "Claude" generative AI program, the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee, Nashville Division, has decided it lacks personal jurisdiction over Anthropic and that the case should be transferred to federal court in the Northern District of California. Concord Music Group Inc. v. Anthropic PBC, 3:23-cv-01092. The music publishers accuse the San Francisco-based Anthropic of using the plaintiffs' works without permission as training materials that allows consumers to generate identical or nearly identical copies of the publishers' song lyrics. The publishers' causes of action allege direct, contributory and vicarious copyright infringement, as well as removal of copyright management information. In the recent ruling, Middle Tennessee District Judge Waverly D. Crenshaw Jr. determined: "[T]he Court does not find that Anthropic purposefully availed itself of Tennessee merely because users can access Claude in Tennessee and Claude can output content related to Tennessee upon request." District Judge Crenshaw added: "Plaintiffs made a strategic decision to sue a California-based company in the Middle District of Tennessee, and in doing so ran the risk of encountering a jurisdictional hurdle too high to climb. Once that hurdle is pushed to the side and this case is transferred to the Northern District of California, Plaintiffs will be free to run their case to the finish line on the merits.