- Concord Music and other music publishers are champing at the bit to amend the complaint to add a new theory that Anthropic used BitTorrenting to download copies of their works from notorious shadow libraries.
- Concord Music is copying the playbook from the Bartz book authors that proved to be partially successful in securing a $1.5 billion proposed settlement, the largest in U.S. copyright history.
- Judge Lee is considering a pending motion for leave to file a 2d amended complaint that includes this theory.
- This “BitTorrenting / Shadow Library” playbook will likely be replicated in any lawsuit involving defendant’s alleged use of shadow libraries.
- Summary was human authored.
Concord Music is champing at the big (no pun intended) to be able to discover information related to Anthropic’s use of BitTorrenting to download copies of works from shadow libraries.
There’s a pending motion for leave to add, in a proposed 2d amended complaint, a new theory of copyright infringement based on Anthropic’s alleged downloading via BitTorrening from shadow libraries, which plaintiffs allege contained their lyrics as well.
Magistrate Judge Van Keulen just granted in part Concord Music’s discovery request but deferred the rest pending Judge Lee’s decision on the motion for leave: “No later than September 11, 2025, Anthropic will produce [1] the unredacted briefs from the class certification and summary judgment motions in Bartz v. Anthropic PBC, No. 24-cv-05417- WHA (Bartz) (other than information designated under the Protective Order by Bartz Plaintiffs that reflects personal identification information) and produce [2] the raw text, extracted text and metadata from LibGen and PiLiMi data sets. Additionally, Anthropic will serve a verified supplemental response to Interrogatory No. 6.”
The BitTorrent / Shadow Library Playbook
This is hardly a surprise Concord Music has copied the partially successful strategy of Bartz book authors in getting separate treatment of Anthropic’s downloading from shadow libraries. We should expect every copyright lawsuit against any AI company that used shadow libraries to face a similar strategy from plaintiffs. However, the success of the strategy depends in large part whether the court adopts the approach of Judge Alsup in Bartz (separate use for library building and not fair use) or Judge Chhabria in Kadrey (same use for the purpose of AI training, which was fair use).
Judge Van Keulen’s discovery ruling
