- The word “BitTorrent” conjures up negative associations with online piracy.
- It’s no surprise that Concord Music and other music publishers have asked Judge Lee leave to file a 2d amended complaint to add new allegations that Anthropic engaged in illegal torrenting of their lyrics, including both downloading and uploading.
- These new allegations include: “(2) to assert new claims against Anthropic for unlawful distribution of Publishers’ works based on the newly discovered evidence of Anthropic’s uploading works via BitTorrent; and (3) to amend Publishers’ Works in Suit to include works that Anthropic downloaded and uploaded via BitTorrent.”
- Concord Music cites Judge Alsup’s decision in Bartz v. Anthropic, in which the Judge excoriated Anthropic for torrenting notorious shadow libraries. In the latter case, Anthropic now faces potential business-ending liability, with a possible award of statutory damages that could easily be the highest ever awarded in U.S. copyright law.
- Concord Music even alleges that Anthropic “concealed” its use of BitTorrent from them.
Concord Music and other publishers have asked Judge Lee to change the scheduling order to allow them time to add new allegations related to Anthropic’s use of BitTorrent to illegally download their lyrics from shadow libraries.
Judge Alsup’s opinion in Bartz v. Anthropic is attributed as the source of these new allegations: “Judge Alsup’s Bartz opinion details how Anthropic used BitTorrent, a filesharing program synonymous with internet piracy, to access Library Genesis (“LibGen”) and Pirate Library Mirror (“PiLiMi”), illegal websites infamous for housing pirated content, to download via “torrenting” millions of unauthorized copies of books. Id. Among the books Anthropic illegally torrented were many lyric and sheet music anthologies containing Publishers’ musical compositions, including Works in Suit. And when Anthropic used BitTorrent to download Publishers’ works via torrenting, it simultaneously uploaded to the public at large unauthorized copies of the same works, infringing Publishers’ exclusive distribution rights in new ways that Anthropic previously concealed.”
Things just went from bad to worse for Anthropic.
Excerpt from Concord Music:
DOWNLOAD CONCORD MUSIC MOTION FOR LEAVE
DOWNLOAD CONCORD MUSIC PROPOSED 2D AMENDED COMPLAINT