Key holding or allegation
The preliminary injunction was denied principally for failure to establish irreparable harm; the court expressly left the training infringement/fair-use merits unresolved.
Why it matters
Important caution against treating denial of preliminary relief as an affirmative ruling that training is lawful.
Facts
Music publishers sought to prevent Anthropic from using protected lyrics for future training and challenged lyric outputs.
Issues before the court
Whether preliminary relief was warranted and whether training itself was infringing or fair use.
What the court did not decide
Whether training copyrighted lyrics infringes copyright or constitutes fair use.
Procedural timeline
U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California
Preliminary-injunction ruling: Preliminary injunction against future lyric training was denied principally for lack of irreparable harm.