Authors Challenge Publishers Over Share of $1.5B Anthropic Settlement for AI Training on Copyrighted Books

Authors Discover Unexpected Claims on Their Anthropic Settlement Payments

Authors expecting payments from Anthropic's $1.5 billion copyright settlement received jarring news this week: publishers and agents are claiming portions of money meant for them1

1

. The settlement, which received final approval in July, stems from a class action suit where a judge ruled that while AI training on copyrighted material falls under fair use, pirating that material does not1

1

. Under the settlement terms, authors of nearly 500,000 titles stand to receive $3,000 for each pirated work illegally used to train AI model Claude1

1

.

Publishers Claim Books with Reverted Rights

The dispute over allocations centers on two main issues. Mystery and thriller author April Henry discovered HarperCollins claiming one of her books that reverted back at least 17 years ago1

1

. She also received a credit alert saying the publisher had been added as her employer, which she says they never were1

1

. Henry has 22 titles on the list of books Anthropic took and expects somewhere in the mid-$20,000 range once her publishers and co-authors take their cut2

2

. After providing documentation proving reversion of rights, the portal later showed the full $3,000 going to her2

2

.

Publishers Seeking Full Payments Instead of 50-50 Split

Authors are also reporting publishers seeking 100% of payments when they're only entitled to 50%1

1

. The default split under the settlement is 50-50 between author and publisher for in-print books with traditional publishers1

1

. However, textbook authors face particularly unfavorable terms, with some contracts handing them as little as 10 to 15% of the total2

2

. Amy Lupold Bair, whose guidebooks about blogging were pirated, stated her publisher wants her to receive only 10% despite her entire work being stolen2

2

. John Wiley & Sons told The New York Times it had filed claims for all Wiley-published works, and that allocations for educational titles follow individual contracts2

2

.

Literary Agents Making Unexpected Claims

Publishers and agents aren't the only ones seeking a share of settlement payments. Victoria Strauss at Writers Beware reported receiving complaints that literary agents are making claims, which she found surprising since agents are not rightsholders in the books they sell1

1

. Author Courtney Milan stated bluntly on Bluesky that some agents are trying to claim percentages on the Anthropic settlement, writing that she does not think they should do this1

1

.

Systemic Issues in Record-Keeping or Opportunism?

Authors Guild CEO Mary Rasenberger told The New York Times she doesn't see this as a grab by the publishers and doesn't believe publishers are specifically trying to harm authors1

1

. Instead, she argued this is the predictable result of poor record-keeping and a confusing settlement process1

1

. Her concern is that publishers who never removed reverted titles from their catalogues are now claiming them back by default2

2

. However, Strauss noted that while she's reluctant to attribute malice to what can be explained by poor recordkeeping, the unusually large number of reports she's received over two days, with authors reporting the exact same errors repeatedly, suggests something more widespread and systemic rather than routine glitches1

1

.

The Critical Date That Determines Payment Rights

The fundamental question isn't who owns a book now, but who owned it when Anthropic downloaded it. Rasenberger places that download date in 2021 and 20222

2

. For authors to make a 100% claim on a book, the reversion of rights needs to have occurred before August 10, 2022, which is the official download date in the settlement1

1

. A title that reverted to its author last year was still the publisher's when the infringement happened2

2

. The Authors Guild heard from one such author this week whose rights came back this year, settling nothing because the download predates the reversion by four years2

2

.

Pre-Existing Contracts Meet New Technology

Kristelia García, who teaches copyright at Georgetown Law, compares the Anthropic settlement to the fight over digital royalties, particularly Eminem's case where producers sued a Universal Music Group subsidiary in 20072

2

. The parallel lies in paperwork: most book contracts say nothing about a copyright settlement or revenue from technologies that didn't exist when authors signed2

2

. The industry is having its streaming moment where pre-existing contracts didn't contemplate AI companies using their work2

2

. This turns payments per pirated work into a records exercise spanning decades of publishing contracts2

2

. Where the two sides cannot agree on the dispute over allocations, a court-appointed arbitrator decides2

2

. The Authors Guild says it will fight hard for any author it believes is losing out2

2

.