A federal judge in San Francisco has given final approval to Anthropic’s $1.5 billion settlement with authors and publishers whose books were obtained from pirate websites. The deal resolves a major copyright class action over material connected to the training of Anthropic’s Claude AI models.
The settlement is the largest known recovery in a US copyright case. It covers more than 482,000 books, and about 91% of them have been claimed by authors or publishers. Eligible rightsholders are expected to receive roughly $3,000 per title, according to AP News.
The case turns on an important distinction for AI companies. Retired US District Judge William Alsup previously ruled that using books to train Claude qualified as fair use under US copyright law. But he also found that Anthropic violated copyright by storing more than 7 million pirated books in a central collection, whether or not each title was ultimately used for training.
Authors had argued that Anthropic used copies of their works without permission. A trial on damages had been due to begin late last year, with potential exposure that could have reached hundreds of billions of dollars.
Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín rejected objections from some authors who said the settlement was too small or treated legal fees unfairly. She approved more than $101 million in fees for the plaintiffs’ lawyers, below the $187.5 million they had requested.
The agreement does not end all disputes involving Anthropic. Some authors and publishers opted out and are pursuing separate cases. UK publisher Bloomsbury says 14,087 of its titles are covered, with the proposed payment split equally between author and publisher.
Sources
- US judge approves Anthropic’s $1.5 billion settlement of copyright lawsuit – Reuters
- Judge approves a $1.5B Anthropic settlement over pirated books used to train the Claude chatbot – AP News
- UK’s Bloomsbury among beneficiaries of $1.5 billion Anthropic copyright lawsuit settlement – Reuters
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