“The complaint seems like it is amendable,” Judge Lee remarked, highlighting that specificity is critical, especially at this stage of litigation.
Nicholas Hailey of Oppenheim & Zebrak LLP, representing the music publishers, argued that the novel nature of the case should be taken into account when evaluating the sufficiency of the claims.
“The novelty of this case weighs strongly against dismissal at the motion to dismiss stage,” Hailey said.
However, Judge Lee reiterated that the allegations for contributory and vicarious infringement appeared to lack the necessary specificity. She criticized the use of phrases such as “it could” or “would,” which she found overly speculative.
Evidence and Guardrails
Hailey contended that the complaint sufficiently supports the claims for third-party infringement, pointing to evidence that Anthropic’s Claude provided copyrighted song lyrics to the plaintiffs’ investigators. He argued that this behavior suggests the chatbot may have done the same for other users.
