It is the major issue for authors today - the use of their copyrighted material for AI training without compensation. The Big AI search engines - ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Claude - train their models with others' works. "Training" in this case means copying others' works and using the information therein to provide answers to your questions. For the most part that is not an issue, the exception being when those works are copyrighted. There have been some suits over the issue and a settlement, but it has not been clearly established yet whether this is a copyright violation or "fair use." Fair use is a legal concept that says minor copying, such as for a book review, does not rise to the level of being a copyright violation.
The suing authors are of different degrees of fame, but none are among the greatest celebrities and beloved people of their generation. Now they have a champion who is one of most admired and loved figures in the world - Elvis. Elvis is suing the AI creators for copyright infringement. He has one of the most valuable songbooks ever written.
You may be wondering how Elvis can be suing them since he died almost 50 years ago, long before the existence of AI. Fair question. Well, it's not quite Elvis himself. It's "the Elvis Plaintiffs." They are the groups who currently own the copyrights to Elvis' songs. These are mainly businesses unrelated to Elvis who either purchased the rights, often long ago, or had those rights all along, such as song writers, publishers and record companies. His heirs do still maintain some of those interests, though a small percentage.
The Elvises first target is Anthropic, maker of Claude. Anthropic must have looked like a logical target. They have already reached a settlement with authors. They agreed to a $1.5 billion settlement. Elvis himself undoubtedly would have appreciated that amount. However, they are unlikely to be offered such a generous deal. The $1.5 billion was for the entire class of authors. That is about $3,000 each. Elvis most likely would have been insulted by that number.
The Elvis Plaintiffs are seeking $150,000 per song, for a total of around $41 million. Estimates of Elvis' record sales run from $100-$500 million. You might think Elvis would have found $41 million insufficient, but considering that the record companies get most of the money from sales, and his manager, Colonel Tom Parker, took a huge cut, Elvis sold his royalties for his songs up to 1973 for only $5.4 million. Of course, most of the his royalties were earned before 1973, but that's all he thought their remaining value was as of 1973 and that's over 50 years ago. His estate was only worth around $5 million when he died. I think Elvis would have taken $41 million or a number significantly lower. Elvis appreciated spending cash.
In the lawsuit, the Elvis Plaintiffs, without much exaggeration, point out that these songs are "some of the most groundbreaking, revolutionary, influential, and enduring musical compositions in human history, with Elvis Presley selling over an estimated one billion records worldwide, and generating billions of streams across the globe despite passing nearly half a century before the advent of streaming. These distinguished works include “All Shook Up”; “Can’t Help Falling in Love”; “If I Can Dream”; “Don’t Be Cruel”; “A Little Less Conversation”; “Return To Sender”; and “(You’re The) Devil In Disguise”. The Works are some of the most valuable in the world, and The Elvis Plaintiffs are deeply protective of these iconic songs, as they contain some of the most renowned lyrics and melodies in music history."
They further contend that Anthropic is using Elvis' songs to create derivative works. That might be acceptable, except, the works Claude creates are almost direct copies of his existing songs, rather than something different in a style that might be like an Elvis song. In their suit they say, “These renders keep landing very close to the originals: same structure, same hooks reused with light rewording, and full sets of verses/choruses/bridges. That’s edging past ‘inspired by’ into reproducing the copyrighted song, even when the words are swapped out.”
In the ultimate dig, the Plaintiffs say, “Defendant...has built its entire business model based on copyright infringement at a scale never seen before.”
Ultimately, the courts will have to decide if it is copyright infringement rather than fair use. The reality is these are copyrighted creations by Elvis and associates for which they are not being paid. The Plaintiffs point out that Anthropic is "Enjoying the fruits of others’ labor without paying them. Anthropic reported raising $30 billion in new funding in February 2026, with a resulting $380 billion valuation of the company. That valuation has only grown, with the latest reports showing that Anthropic’s value has more than tripled in just five months thereafter, to $1.2 trillion as of July 2026. It is now well known that Anthropic is gunning for a $2 trillion IPO and has speculated that this will occur." It makes the $1.5 billion paid to authors look like theft.
However, we all use the AI searches now. They are quickly replacing traditional searching as they provide quick, easily understood answers to your questions. I think most people by now must be relying on them. Prohibiting their use, or requiring the AI search engines to reach deals with every author, songwriter, etc. is something of a practical impossibility. Perhaps there needs to be a deal for Elvis and other songwriters similar to the one Anthropic made with the authors.
And then, there is Gemini and ChatGPT.
