July 25, 2026. Concord v. Anthropic upheld DMCA claims. Ross Intelligence lost on fair use. Courts are drawing lines. For independent creators, the DMCA is the most powerful tool available. Here is what is working in 2026.
In May 2026, the federal court in the Udio class action denied in part the company's motion to dismiss, specifically upholding the plaintiffs' claims under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The DMCA prohibits circumventing technological measures that control access to copyrighted works. The plaintiffs argue that scraping songs from streaming platforms required bypassing those platforms' protections. The court agreed that the claim could proceed.
In Concord v. Anthropic, the second lawsuit filed by UMG, Concord, and ABKCO, the DMCA claims survived a motion to dismiss. The case covers more than 20,000 songs with potential damages exceeding $3 billion. It is the largest non-class-action copyright case in United States history.
The DMCA provides for statutory damages of up to $150,000 per work willfully infringed, plus injunctive relief. For individual creators, this is leverage. The platforms know the liability. They respond to properly filed notices because the law requires them to.
In Ross Intelligence v. Thomson Reuters, the Third Circuit is now reviewing one of the first appellate rulings on AI and fair use. Ross used Westlaw headnotes to train a legal AI. The district court found this was not fair use. The key factor was market harm. Ross's AI competed directly with Westlaw's research services. Training on the data was not transformative enough to overcome the competitive use.
A judicial consensus is developing around a market-competition standard. When AI outputs compete with the market for the training data, courts find infringement. When they do not, fair use arguments survive. This is not settled law. But it is the direction the courts are moving.
For independent creators, this standard cuts both ways. If an AI model generates music that competes with your recordings, you have a stronger argument. If the model is used internally or for non-competing purposes, the fair use defense gets stronger. The specifics of your situation matter enormously.
We have been tracking this at our firm. Here is what is working for individual creators in 2026.
Step one: find out if your work is in there. The Atlantic's AI Watchdog lets you search music datasets by artist name. Have I Been Trained searches LAION-5B for images. Books3 and LibGen searches cover text. Our Is Your Work in a Dataset page links to all of them.
Step two: document everything. Screenshots are evidence. Take them before you send a single takedown notice. Once you alert the platform, content can disappear in hours. For every infringing track on every platform, capture the URL, the date, the platform metadata. Archive every page through the Wayback Machine at web.archive.org. Export the platform metadata as structured data. We have a complete checklist at beaumontandsheridan.com/resources/documenting-infringement.
Step three: file the DMCA takedown. Every major platform has a DMCA agent and a designated email address for notices. Your notice must include a physical or electronic signature, identification of the copyrighted work, identification of the infringing material, your contact information, a good faith statement, and an accuracy statement under penalty of perjury. We have a step-by-step guide and templates at beaumontandsheridan.com/resources/dmca-takedown-toolkit.
Step four: register your copyright. Statutory damages and attorney's fees are only available for works registered prior to infringement, or within three months of publication. If you have not registered, do it now. The Copyright Office website handles electronic registration. It is $45 to $65 per work depending on the category.
Step five: decide what you want. A takedown removes the content. It does not compensate you. If you want compensation, you need a lawyer and a lawsuit. Class actions are one path. Direct litigation is another. Our Class Actions page tracks the active cases and eligibility windows.
Sending an email to the company that says "you stole my work." That is not a DMCA notice and it creates no legal obligation. Posting about it on social media. Platforms do not monitor Twitter for takedown requests. Waiting. The longer infringing content stays up, the harder it is to argue the infringement caused you harm. Ignoring the Copyright Office. Registration is the gatekeeper for statutory damages.
The process is slow. It is bureaucratic. It requires attention to detail. But it works. The DMCA is the most powerful tool individual creators have in 2026. Use it.
Next week on The Echo, Episode Five: The Law. We walk through DMCA takedowns step by step. How to file them. Where to send them. What the platforms actually have to do when they receive them. Subscribe at beaumontandsheridan.com/podcast.
Beaumont & Sheridan is an information resource for individual creators. We do not represent corporations. This post is not legal advice. If you need legal advice, talk to a lawyer.