Anthropic's $1.5B Author Settlement Sets Baseline as Music Publishers Sue

Anthropic's $1.5 billion settlement with authors over pirated training data won court approval in July 2026, setting a concrete financial baseline for AI copyright exposure. Sony Music Publishing and Warner Chappell Music escalated separately, suing Anthropic on August 29 for allegedly torrenting "thousands upon thousands" of compositions to train Claude. They seek up to $150,000 per infringed work.