Independent music publisher Round Hill Music sued Anthropic and Suno in California federal court on Monday, alleging the companies misused hundreds of songs to train their artificial intelligence systems, according to Reuters.

In its complaint against Anthropic, Round Hill said the company used lyrics from at least 500 songs to help train Claude to respond to human prompts. The publisher said the songs include music from James Brown, The Kinks, and the Goo Goo Dolls.

Lawsuits Target AI Training Practices

Round Hill also alleged that Suno used the same songs to train its AI-powered music generation system. The publisher told the court in both cases that it may eventually add “ten thousand or more” compositions to the lawsuits.

The company is seeking damages that could “potentially approach or conceivably exceed $1 billion,” according to the complaints.

Spokespeople for Anthropic and Suno did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the cases.

Why It Matters

“We intend to take these cases to trial and to hold these companies accountable, and we will not accept a resolution that leaves songwriters and artists deprived of their rightful share of compensation,” Round Hill CEO Josh Gruss said in a statement.

Round Hill’s lawsuits add to dozens of cases brought by copyright owners, including authors and news outlets, against technology companies such as OpenAI, Microsoft, and Meta Platforms over the training of AI systems.

Amazon-backed Anthropic was the first major AI company to settle one of the cases, agreeing last year to pay a group of authors $1.5 billion to resolve a class-action lawsuit.