New York City-based music publisher Reservoir has expanded its copyright lawsuits against artificial intelligence companies Suno and Anthropic, bringing the statutory relief it seeks to more than $445 million, according to Digital Music News.

The amended actions were filed Nov. 11, weeks after Reservoir submitted its original complaints, the outlet’s Dylan Smith reported. The claims concern alleged infringement involving AI training material and generated content, as well as alleged violations of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, or DMCA.

In the Anthropic case, Reservoir now identifies 1,143 allegedly infringed works, up from 853 in the original complaint. That brings the statutory copyright damages sought in that action to $171.5 million. Digital Music News reported that the addition of works also increased the requested DMCA damages, pushing the overall statutory relief sought above $445 million.

The allegations address different forms of AI output. Reservoir’s case against Anthropic points to Claude’s alleged “verbatim or near-verbatim reproduction of lyrics.” Its claims against Suno include alleged infringement during training and the generation of allegedly infringing derivative works. The amounts sought are claims for damages, not court awards.

The amendments come as music-industry copyright litigation increasingly draws on searchable training datasets and developments in other cases. Digital Music News cited GEMA’s victory over Suno in Germany among those developments.

Suno also faces litigation from Universal Music, Sony Music, independent artists and other rights holders. The outlet named Eight Mile Style, Elvis Presley Enterprises, SOCAN, KODA, Round Hill and artist David Lowery among the parties pursuing cases against the company.

At the same time, Suno has partnership agreements with Warner Music, BMG and Believe, according to the report. Those commercial relationships sit alongside, rather than resolve, the separate infringement allegations being advanced by Reservoir and other rights holders.

Sources