Claude's new system prompt bans song lyrics, copyrighted characters amid copyright lawsuits
Afinetheorem · x · 2026-09-02
Simon Willison digs into Anthropic's newly published system prompt updates for Claude consumer apps:
- Heavy new copyright section: Claude must not reproduce song lyrics, poems, or book/article passages — including final lines, choruses, note-by-note melodies, or lines users paste claiming them as their own; once it declines, it keeps declining narrower variants.
- It must also refuse to draw copyrighted characters or logos.
- Poster Afinetheorem argues copyright lawsuits are forcing LLMs to block even obviously fair use — he's had refusals on his own published writing.
- Bonus: Anthropic's docs serve any page as Markdown by adding .md, making prompt diffs trivial; reliable cutoff date is June 2026.
Related event: Claude's new system prompt tightens copyright restrictions(2 posts)→
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