Judge presses music publishers for specifics in Anthropic suit
U.S. District Judge Eumi Lee asked for additional briefings after questioning how publishers picked 20,517 works as examples of infringement.
A federal judge in San Jose tentatively ruled from the bench Wednesday to deny Anthropic's motion to dismiss a music publishers' copyright suit, then asked for additional briefings after hearing oral argument, according to Courthouse News Service. U.S. District Judge Eumi Lee said she was not fully convinced the publishers had adequately pleaded their claim that more than 20,000 works were copied through torrenting, and pressed for specifics on how the figure of 20,517 works was chosen.
Anthropic's lead counsel, Sonal Mehta, argued the publishers' complaint ignored "enhanced guardrails" built to stop Claude from reproducing copyrighted lyrics, and said the 20,517 number lacked explanation. The publishers' attorney, Nicholas Hailey, responded that they do not need to prove how Anthropic infringed each work at the motion-to-dismiss stage, since they lack access to that information.
Lee also granted a motion to partially dismiss the case, with leave to amend, against Anthropic co-founder and CEO Dario Amodei, finding the publishers had not shown he committed direct infringement by approving use of pirated materials. Hailey said Amodei may still face secondary infringement claims, which Anthropic has not challenged.
Judge Lee tentatively denied Anthropic's motion to dismiss, then walked it back after hearing argument — that's the kind of swing that should make any rightsholder's lawyer sweat. The sticking point was simple: where did that number, 20,517, actually come from? If you're backing a claim with a dataset, "information and belief" won't carry it alone in this courtroom.
From the Coral Wire edition of Fri, Nov 6 2026 · Coral Index 28/100 (Storm warning)