Judge approves Anthropic's $1.5 billion copyright settlement for pirated books used in AI training

Judge approves Anthropic's $1.5 billion copyright settlement with authors

On Monday, a judge approved a $1.5 billion settlement between Anthropic and authors, ending the largest copyright class-action ever certified and granting the largest copyright settlement ever reached. Back in May, some authors fought to block the settlement, which was proposed after the court ruled that Anthropic training AI on books was fair use; however, its piracy of works was likely not. Authors opposing the settlement argued that lawyers' fees were too high and authors' payouts were too low. Hoping to avoid accepting the estimated $3,000-per-work payout and file separate lawsuits to seek higher damages, a handful of authors tried to opt out past the deadline. In her order, US District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín overruled objections to the settlement as lacking merit. She emphasized that about 95 percent of the class received notifications and approximately 91 percent of authors and publishers impacted have already filed claims. Only 350 class members opted out, while another 54 sought to object or filed late opt-out requests, Martínez-Olguín said. The high rate of participation suggested that most authors received timely notice of the distribution plan, agreed it was "fair," and supported the settlement, Martínez-Olguín wrote. She also noted that the $3,000-per-work payouts were "four times the minimum statutory damages." Lawyers fees, plaintiffs awards cut Although Martínez-Olguín approved the total settlement amount, she reduced both lawyers' fees and the requested awards for the three authors who represented the class in the litigation. Lawyers originally asked for 20 percent of the settlement in fees, requesting $300 million. Ahead of Martínez-Olguín's ruling, that percentage was reduced to 12.5, with the total fees requested amounting to approximately $187 million. The judge ruled that 12.5 percent was too high, however, cutting fees down to less than 7 percent of the settlement fund, which is about $101 million. Some of those fees include future work that lawyers will do to distribute funds, and some authors argued that lawyers' projections for time spent were alarmingly inflated. Acknowledging these concerns, Martínez-Olguín wrote in a footnote that the court decided to take "an additional step to protect the interests of the Class." Once payouts have been finalized, lawyers will be required to file a post-distribution accounting, and if their fees are less, then the court "may reduce" them, Martínez-Olguín said. Although the settlement likely relieves the three authors who spent years defending their works and 506,194 works from potential class members, the lead plaintiffs are likely disappointed by a decision to reduce their requested service awards from $50,000 to $15,000. But Martínez-Olguín said that the higher amount was "unreasonable," despite authors spending substantial time and resources on both litigation and the settlement negotiation. Without a sign that authors may face retaliation for filing the lawsuit, the judge ruled that lower awards were due. In a statement to Reuters, lead plaintiffs said that the settlement "brings us one step closer to real accountability for Anthropic and puts all AI companies on notice they can't shortcut the law or override creators' rights." It's unlikely, but still possible, that authors may receive more than $3,000 per work. "If any funds remain in the Settlement Fund after all Valid Claims are paid, the Parties anticipate a redistribution of the remaining funds to Settlement Class Members unless it is economically infeasible to do so," Martínez-Olguín said. Authors' lawyers celebrated the judge's approval, writing in a press release that "rightsholders came together to call foul" on Anthropic's piracy and describing support for the settlement among them as "overwhelming." Anthropic also seems happy to be done arguing about the settlement. In a statement provided to Ars, Anthropic's deputy general counsel, Aparna Sridhar, said that Anthropic is glad the case's landmark ruling established that its AI training was fair use and is happy that most rightsholders have already filed claims. "We are pleased that more than 91 percent of authors and publishers covered by the settlement have claimed their share of the payment, and we're looking forward to bringing this matter to a close," Sridhar said. Anthropic blocked last-minute opt-outs For every opt-out granted, Anthropic risks facing separate litigation on what Martínez-Olguín said remains a complex case for courts to assess. It makes sense then that Anthropic was motivated to block delayed requests to opt out. Some authors who opposed the settlement argued that they did not receive timely notices, the opt-out period was too short, and the settlement awards to authors were unacceptable, because the Copyright Act allowed for potentially higher statutory damages. Martínez-Olguín confirmed that 350 class members successfully opted out of the settlement, but dozens of objections were denied, as were at least nine authors' direct requests to opt out after the March 30 deadline. Ultimately, Martínez-Olguín overruled most of the objections and denied most of the late opt-out requests. The court only accepted two late opt-out requests from authors who showed "excusable neglect" in failing to meet the deadline, Martínez-Olguín said. The two were co-authors who did not receive settlement notices. One author filed an opt-out request a few days late, which was granted, while the other request was granted after a much longer delay, due to the author suffering a stroke. That author also garnered the court's sympathy by noting that she "lives in Mexico, speaks Spanish, was not able to understand the class notice, and asserts no Spanish translation was provided." One of the last authors to try to escape the settlement at the last minute was Donald Passman, an entertainment lawyer and author who sent his request at the end of June. That was three months after the deadline, which Martínez-Olguín said was "inexcusably late" since records showed the notices were delivered to his current address, where at least one notice was "received," albeit more than a month after the opt-out deadline. In a court filing, Passman argued that evidence showed he received late notice of the settlement. He allegedly couldn't even rely on his publisher, Simon & Schuster, to forward notices and "had no information about the existence of any opt-out deadline" until he received a letter past the deadline that only invited him to claim his payout and did not mention opt-outs. Passman did not immediately respond to Ars' request to comment on the settlement approval. But he's likely disappointed, since he argued that his book, All You Need to Know About the Music Business, is a key industry text and "the estimated per-work settlement payment of approximately $3,351.39 does not adequately compensate me for the potential value of my individual copyright claims." Anthropic fought Passman's attempt to opt out, arguing that he took months to file his opt-out request after learning about the settlement. According to Anthropic, it allegedly strained credulity that Passman "somehow did not hear about the largest copyright settlement ever in a case that generated mountains of headlines." "Allowing Mr. Passman to opt out after such a long and unjustified delay would invite others to try the same, undermining finality and risking undue delay in the distribution of Settlement funds," Anthropic argued. "In a Class of hundreds of thousands, only a tiny fraction -- approximately 400 -- have sought to opt out." Martínez-Olguín agreed with Anthropic and said that granting Passman's request risked opening the floodgates for other authors to back out of the settlement. In her order, Martínez-Olguín reminded authors that the settlement provided non-monetary benefits they seemed to be ignoring. For one, authors can avoid costly, lengthy, complex litigation that could result in a loss with "zero recovery," she said, citing precedent showing that "prompt closure" provides value to class members. For another, the settlement requires Anthropic to destroy all their works and allows for future litigation, should Anthropic misuse their works after the dust settles.

Anthropic's landmark $1.5B copyright settlement is approved

Anthropic can finally start cutting checks to a group of authors and book publishers that sued the AI lab over copyright infringement. A federal judge gave final approval Monday of Anthropic's landmark $1.5 billion settlement of a class action copyright lawsuit, Reuters reported. Judge William Alsup of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California issued a preliminary approval of the settlement last year, after ruling that Anthropic had illegally downloaded and stored millions of copyrighted books. Alsup has since retired and Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin signed off on the settlement on Monday. The payout will deliver $3,000 per work across an estimated 500,000 works, shared among the authors and publishers who hold rights to them. While the settlement is believed to be the largest in the history of U.S. copyright law, many authors and creators still don't view it as a win. That's because of how the legal question was resolved. Alsup sided with Anthropic on the core issue. He ruled that training an AI model on copyrighted text counts as fair use -- a decision widely seen as a turning point for the AI industry. But the ruling didn't excuse how Anthropic obtained the books in the first place. Anthropic had built its training library from two sources: books it purchased and scanned (fine), and books it downloaded from pirate sites like Library Genesis and Pirate Library Mirror. Alsup found that second method illegal on its own terms and said that piracy question could go to trial; Anthropic agreed to a settlement soon after to avoid a trial and whatever damages a jury might have awarded. While the final approval closes out this case, it doesn't settle the legal question industry-wide because Alsup's ruling was a single district court decision, and Anthropic's decision to settle means the case will never reach an appeals court to become binding precedent. Other judges are still free to reach their own conclusions on their own facts, which is exactly what's playing out elsewhere. There is still a string of copyright lawsuits against companies such as Google, Meta, Midjourney, and OpenAI over whether it's legal to train AI models on copyrighted works. Just last week, a group of publishers and authors, including Hachette, Cengage, Elsevier, author Scott Turow, and S.C.R.I.B.E. filed a class action lawsuit against Google over accusations that the company used their copyrighted works to train its AI platform, Gemini.

Anthropic's $1.5 billion book piracy settlement approved by judge

A federal judge has signed off on Anthropic's $1.5 billion class action settlement with authors who accused the company of training its AI models on copyrighted books, as reported earlier by Reuters. In an order on Monday, Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín writes that the settlement will provide "meaningful relief," offering authors around $3,000 for each book allegedly pirated by Anthropic. The $1.5 billion settlement is the "largest known copyright recovery in history," according to the law firm representing the plaintiffs. A group of authors -- Andrea Bartz, Charles Graeber, and Kirk Wallace Johnson -- first filed a copyright lawsuit against Anthropic in 2024. While the now-retired Judge William Alsup granted Anthropic a partial victory last year, he approved a separate class action lawsuit claiming the company engaged in the "Napster-style downloading of millions of works." Anthropic agreed to a $1.5 billion settlement in September 2025, to which Judge Alsup later granted preliminary approval. "We are pleased that more than 91% of authors and publishers covered by the settlement have claimed their share of the payment," Anthropic general counsel Aparna Sridhar tells Reuters. "We're looking forward to bringing this matter to a close." Anthropic is still facing copyright lawsuits from Chicken Soup for the Soul and several other authors who argue that $3,000 per book isn't enough.

Anthropic slapped with $1.5 billion settlement in copyright lawsuit, largest payout ever -- court says that training AI on books, other publications is 'fair use,' but ruled that the startup's 7-million-book pirated library infringes authors' rights

Anthropic pays authors and publishers for pirating millions of books. A U.S. federal judge granted the final approval of Anthropic's $1.5-billion settlement over the class action lawsuit authors filed against it for infringing their rights. According to Reuters, while the court ruled that training AI on books is considered fair use under copyright law, it was the fact that Anthropic kept 7 million pirated books in a central library that violated the copyrights of the authors and their publishers. This is reportedly the biggest payout in a copyright case ever, and the first one to settle among the many cases against AI firms being tried today for infringement. While this might seem like a massive sum, the huge number of involved works and authors means that the payout amounts to a little over $200 per title. It also affirmed that AI firms' use of existing works to train their models is fair use, which is something that many are fighting against. "We reached this settlement in 2025, after the court's landmark ruling that training AI on books is fair use under copyright law -- which remains the law today," said Anthropic deputy general counsel Aparna Sridhar. "We are pleased that more than 91% of authors and publishers covered by the settlement have claimed their share of the payment, and we're looking forward to bringing this matter to a close." Because of this, some groups have opted out of the settlement and instead filed separate complaints against the AI firm. Still, this is a landmark win for copyright holders, especially against other AI tech companies that have been scraping pirated content to train their models. This includes Nvidia, which allegedly used scripts in its NeMo Framework specifically designed for illegally downloading books, and Meta, which reportedly torrented 82TB of pirated books for AI training. The latter argued that its framework also have "non-infringing uses," but the court said that it's not the entire system, but specific tools within it that were the issue. As for Meta, it claimed that its use of pirated material was legal as long as it did not seed content. Copyright infringement is one of the major issues that AI tools are facing at the moment, especially as many creators believe that these models were trained on stolen data. Anthropic's landmark settlement is a first major win for authors and publishers -- although it wasn't exactly what some wanted, given that the settlement is small compared to the number of pirated books and that AI training is still considered fair use. Follow Tom's Hardware on Google News, or add us as a preferred source, to get our latest news, analysis, & reviews in your feeds.

Judge Approves Anthropic's $1.5 Billion Copyright Settlement for Authors

(Credit: Thomas Fuller/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images) A federal judge has approved Anthropic's record $1.5 billion settlement for an AI copyright lawsuit brought by a group of authors who claimed the company trained its AI models on pirated copies of their copyrighted works. Anthropic proposed the settlement in September, and US District Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin approved it on Monday, Reuters reports. The settlement is the largest for a copyright lawsuit in US history. It covers nearly 500,000 copyrighted works, so the payout for each could be around $3,000. Anthropic had set up a website for the settlement procedure, and the deadline to submit a claim expired on March 30. Around 91% of the authors had claimed their part of the settlement before the deadline, "and we're looking forward to bringing this matter to a close," Anthropic's deputy general counsel, Aparna Sridhar, told Reuters. The lawsuit began with three authors in 2024 and gained significant attention last year after Judge William Alsup ruled that the fair use doctrine permits AI companies to train models on books they obtain legally. Anthropic was eventually held liable only for allegedly downloading and retaining pirated copies of copyrighted works. Alsup has now retired, and so the settlement was approved by Martinez-Olguin. The authors' lead attorney, Justin Nelson, welcomed the final approval. "It is the largest known copyright recovery in history. We look forward to making distributions to the Class as promptly as possible," Nelson said in a statement. Several other tech giants, including Apple and OpenAI, are facing similar AI copyright lawsuits. Disclosure: Ziff Davis, PCMag's parent company, filed a lawsuit against OpenAI in April 2025, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.

In landmark Anthropic settlement, judge rejects 'windfall' for lawyers

WASHINGTON, July 21 (Reuters) - A federal judge overseeing the $1.5 billion copyright settlement between Anthropic and authors sharply reduced the plaintiffs' legal fee request, rejecting a percentage-based award that she said would produce a "windfall" for the lawyers and divert tens of millions of dollars from class members. U.S. District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín in Oakland approved the nationwide settlement on Monday but awarded class counsel about $101.6 million, below the $187.5 million they sought after cutting back an earlier request for $300 million. The lawsuit alleged Anthropic trained its artificial intelligence models on hundreds of thousands of pirated books. Anthropic denied any wrongdoing. The dispute over fees highlighted a recurring dispute in major class actions over how lawyers should ⁠be compensated. Courts can award fees based on a percentage of the settlement fund or use the "lodestar" method, which calculates fees based on hours worked and reasonable billing rates. The difference between the approaches can be substantial, with millions more dollars potentially flowing to class members or to the lawyers who represent them. The attorneys for the class at law firms Susman Godfrey and Lieff Cabraser had no immediate comment on the fee award, including whether they would appeal. In a statement, Anthropic said it was looking forward to bringing the litigation to a close but declined to comment on legal fees. The class lawyers initially sought $300 million in fees but withdrew that request after another judge indicated that he would not approve it. They later sought $187.5 million, arguing that the amount reflected the complexity of the ⁠litigation and the result achieved. In court filings, the attorneys said a percentage-based award better aligned the interests of counsel and class members by rewarding lawyers for obtaining a larger recovery. Anthropic in a court filing, opens new tab in December criticized the plaintiffs' fee approach, saying judges have questioned using the benchmark percentage model in the context of a so-called megafund settlement. The authors' lawyers countered that Anthropic wanted to lower the fees to "discourage quality firms from ⁠bringing similar class actions against it in the future." Martínez-Olguín, in her order,, opens new tab concluded the lodestar method was better suited to determining a reasonable fee in the case than a percentage-based award. She said granting the requested 12.5% share of the settlement fund would generate outsized profits for class counsel ⁠given the size of the recovery and the hours worked. The judge increased the lawyers' lodestar award with a multiplier, citing the record-setting settlement, the novel copyright and AI issues involved, and the risk that counsel might recover nothing. The final fee award ⁠amounted to about 6.8% of the settlement fund. Martínez-Olguín rejected a series of objections to the fee request by authors who are members of the class, finding that they did not account for the risks the plaintiffs' lawyers took. US judge approves Anthropic's $1.5 billion settlement of copyright lawsuit Lawyers behind $1.5 billion Anthropic settlement slash fee bid after pushback from judge Reporting by Mike Scarcella Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab

Anthropic's landmark $1.5 billion copyright settlement with authors wins final court approval

Serving tech enthusiasts for over 25 years. TechSpot means tech analysis and advice you can trust. What just happened? Anthropic's landmark $1.5 billion copyright settlement with authors and publishers has received final court approval, clearing the way for payments in what is believed to be the largest recovery in US copyright history. The case centered on almost 500,000 books obtained from pirate libraries while the company was developing its Claude AI model. US District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín signed off on the deal Monday, rejecting objections that the payout was too small, the lawyers were being overpaid, or some copyright holders had been improperly excluded. She awarded the plaintiffs' attorneys more than $101 million, well below the $187.5 million they requested. Anthropic says more than 91% of the authors and publishers covered by the settlement have claimed a share. The agreement is expected to provide around $3,000 for each eligible work before legal fees, administrative costs, and other expenses, with payments divided between the authors and publishers that hold the rights. The company must also destroy the pirated material covered by the agreement. Some authors and publishers opted out and have launched separate lawsuits against Anthropic, meaning the $1.5 billion payout doesn't end all of the company's book-related copyright battles. In 2024, authors Andrea Bartz, Charles Graeber, and Kirk Wallace Johnson sued Anthropic after accusing it of downloading their books and hundreds of thousands of other titles from shadow libraries such as Library Genesis and Pirate Library Mirror. Court documents later indicated that Anthropic had amassed a central library containing more than seven million pirated books. The case produced a split ruling in June 2025. Then-US District Judge William Alsup found that using copyrighted books to train Claude qualified as fair use because the process was transformative. However, he ruled that downloading and permanently storing pirated copies was a separate act of infringement. Alsup also approved Anthropic's practice of buying physical books, cutting off their bindings, scanning the pages, and destroying the originals. The company still faced a December 2025 trial over the pirate archive, where potential statutory damages could have reached hundreds of billions of dollars. The settlement was reached last August. The final approval closes this class action but doesn't establish a binding nationwide precedent, as the district court ruling will not be tested on appeal. Anthropic also faces a separate $3 billion lawsuit from major music publishers, which accuse it of pirating more than 20,000 songs and other copyrighted works to train Claude. Similar cases against OpenAI, Meta, Google, and other AI companies continue to work their way through US courts.

The AI Copyright Lawsuits Have Finally Produced an Actual Payout

After AI hit the scene a few years ago, writers like George R.R. Martin and Ta-Nehisi Coates, as well as media companies like The New York Times and Disney, quickly sued AI companies, accusing them of stealing their work to train their models. There have been dozens of lawsuits filed, and even though most still remain tied up in court years later, one of them is finally set to produce an actual payout. Reuters is reporting that Anthropic is set to cut checks to the authors and publishers of roughly 500,000 works covered by a class-action settlement with the company. A federal judge gave final approval on Monday to the proposed $1.5 billion payout, a figure that would make it the largest known copyright settlement in U.S. history. The original class-action lawsuit was filed in 2024 and accused Anthropic of using hundreds of thousands of copyrighted books to train its AI models without permission. The lawsuit also claimed the company did not obtain many of the books legally, but instead downloaded them from piracy sites like Library Gensis. "It intentionally downloaded known pirated copies of books from the internet, made unlicensed copies of them, and then used those unlicensed copies to digest and analyze the copyrighted expression-all for its own commercial gain," the complaint states. "The end result is a model built on the work of thousands of authors, meant to mimic the syntax, style, and themes of the copyrighted works on which it was trained." Largest-ever copyright settlement is still a mixed result U.S. District Judge William Alsup handed both sides a partial victory last year. He ruled that Anthropic's use of copyrighted books to train its AI models was protected under fair use. However, he found that the company's separate downloading and retention of more than seven million pirated books in a permanent digital library was not protected, including books that may never have been used to train its models. Rather than go to trial over the piracy issue, which could have exposed Anthropic to hundreds of billions of dollars in damages, the company agreed to settle. Alsup gave the proposed settlement preliminary approval last September before retiring. U.S. District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín granted final approval Monday, rejecting objections from some authors and publishers who argued that the settlement was too small. Coincidentally, Martínez-Olguín is the same judge who this week temporarily paused Paramount Skydance's proposed takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery. The payout is estimated to comeout to roughly $3,000 per book. "We reached this settlement in 2025, after the court's landmark ruling that training AI on books is fair use under copyright law -- which remains the law today," Aparna Sridhar, Deputy General Counsel for Anthropic, told Gizmodo. "We are pleased that more than 91% of authors and publishers covered by the settlement have claimed their share of the payment, and we're looking forward to bringing this matter to a close." Record payout, but limited legal impact Reuters also reported that some authors and publishers have opted out of the settlement and will pursue their own separate lawsuits. Additionally, the settlement may have limited impact on other cases because the case never went to trial or reached a higher court, meaning it did not establish binding legal precedent. Among the most notable ongoing cases are lawsuits brought by The New York Times, other newspapers, and authors including George R.R. Martin, John Grisham, Sarah Silverman and Ta-Nehisi Coates against OpenAI. These separate cases have since been combined in a Manhattan federal court. The plaintiffs allege that OpenAI copied their books and news articles to train its models and that ChatGPT sometimes even reproduces material from their protected work. Major record labels are also suing the AI music company Suno, while entertainment giants including Disney, Universal and Warner Bros. Discovery are pursuing copyright claims against Midjourney. So even though this settlement might be the largest ever copyright payout, it might not remain that way for long.

US judge approves Anthropic's $1.5 billion settlement of copyright lawsuit

July 20 (Reuters) - A federal judge in San Francisco on Monday signed off on artificial intelligence company Anthropic's landmark $1.5 billion settlement of a class action lawsuit brought by a group of authors who accused it of misusing their books to train its AI chatbot Claude. U.S. District Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin said that she would grant final approval of the settlement, the largest known settlement of a U.S. copyright case. The case is one of dozens brought by copyright owners including authors and news outlets ⁠against tech companies over the training of their large language models, and the first major U.S. case to settle. Now-retired Judge William Alsup initially greenlit, opens new tab the deal last September. The writers sued Anthropic in 2024, arguing that the company, which is backed by Amazon and Alphabet, used pirated versions of their books without permission to teach Claude to respond to human prompts. Alsup ruled last June that Anthropic made fair use of the authors' work to train Claude, but found that the company violated their ⁠rights by saving more than 7 million pirated books to a "central library" that would not necessarily be used for AI training. A trial was scheduled to begin last December to determine how much Anthropic owed for the alleged piracy, with potential damages ⁠running into the hundreds of billions of dollars. Authors and other copyright holders filed claims covering over 92% of the more than 480,000 works included in the settlement, an attorney for ⁠the authors said during a court hearing. The settlement also spurred objections from some authors who have argued it is not large enough, overcompensates the ⁠plaintiffs' attorneys or wrongly excludes some copyright owners. Some authors and publishers opted out of the settlement and have filed separate lawsuits against Anthropic that are still ongoing. Reporting by Blake Brittain in Washington, Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi and Sanjeev Miglani Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab * Suggested Topics: * Litigation * Constitutional Law * Consumer Protection * Intellectual Property * Data Privacy Blake Brittain Thomson Reuters Blake Brittain reports on intellectual property law, including patents, trademarks, copyrights and trade secrets, for Reuters Legal. He has previously written for Bloomberg Law and Thomson Reuters Practical Law and practiced as an attorney.

Authors have mixed feelings about the $1.5B Anthropic copyright infringement ruling

AI company Anthropic will pay $1.5 billion dollars to hundreds of thousands of authors in a landmark copyright infringement settlement. But some authors have mixed feelings about the outcome. RICCARDO MILANI/Hans Lucas/AFP via Getty Images/AFP hide caption Charles Graeber said he has some positive feelings about being among the three main plaintiffs in one of the largest copyright infringement settlements in history. "I was proud to be part of a group that showed that a ragtag bunch of authors joined later by publishers could actually hold together as a class, face a Goliath like Anthropic and get a meaningful number out of them," The New York Times bestselling author and journalist told NPR. But he's also hesitant to call the efforts and outcome of the lawsuit an all-out win. Graeber is among the more than 300,000 writers involved in the suit who may soon be getting a modest windfall. A federal judge in San Francisco rubber stamped a $1.5 billion settlement in July resulting from a landmark class action lawsuit the authors brought against the AI company Anthropic two years ago. The AI company agreed to settle after a federal judge ruled last year that it had used the contents of millions of digitized copyrighted books to train the large language models behind its chatbot, Claude, without seeking the consent of or compensating the authors of those works. Graeber said he is entitled to around $3,100 in compensation for each of the two books he wrote that were used to feed Claude, including The New York Times bestselling true crime book The Good Nurse, which Netflix adapted into a movie in 2022. The author said the hard cash reaffirms that piracy is a crime. But he has mixed feelings about the last 2-plus years he's spent fighting Anthropic. "A lot of travel, a lot of discussion about what to do and how to proceed and a lot of jobs passed up," he said. "I'm much poorer for this settlement, ironically." The overall settlement amount may seem large. But thousands of authors are involved, and they have to split the money with the publishers. Also, more than $100 million went to the plaintiffs' lawyers. And perhaps more importantly, the case could be seen as more of a win for the AI companies than it is for the publishing industry. A win for the AI industry? That's because within the narrow terms of this particular lawsuit, the court did not find it illegal for Anthropic to train its AI algorithms on authors' copyrighted works - as long as the company pays for the books it uses. "Training AI on books is fair use under copyright law," said Aparna Sridhar, deputy general counsel for Anthropic, in a statement to NPR. "More than 91% of authors and publishers covered by the settlement have claimed their share of the payment, and we're looking forward to bringing this matter to a close." The company declined to respond to further questions about the implications of the judge's ruling. A federal judge also ruled in favor of Meta in a similar case last year involving a group of authors, who included Richard Kadrey and Sarah Silverman. The authors sued Meta, alleging they used pirated copies of their novels to train some of its AI models. Meta claimed fair use and won because the authors failed to present evidence that the tech company's use of their books affected the market for their original work. AI companies often invoke the fair use doctrine - which enables the use of copyrighted works without the copyright holder's consent in some situations - as they try to make the case in court for training their models on these materials. New York Times bestselling author Andrea Bartz, another named plaintiff in the Anthropic trial alongside Graeber, said the argument for fair use makes little sense when the algorithms are being used to create machine-authored texts that directly compete with works by human authors on the open market. "The algorithm is being used to essentially try to put us out of a job," Bartz said. Threats from abroad Meanwhile, even if laws in the U.S. eventually give authors stronger copyright protections, there's no guarantee that other countries will play by the same rules. Intellectual property lawyer Dale Nelson, who was not involved in the Anthropic vs Bartz case but said she follows such matters closely, notes the threat from overseas AI companies, especially the creators of powerful and increasingly popular chatbots like China's DeepSeek. "The government in China controls in large part what the companies are doing," Nelson said. "So I think that enforcement attempts there would be very difficult." Bartz said to address this reality, AI regulation needs to move beyond borders, especially as nations compete for political dominance through AI. Chinese AI companies often use a technique to build their models called "AI distillation." This involves feeding their models the outputs generated by other AI models, often high-quality U.S.-based ones like OpenAI's GPT-4 or Anthropic's Claude, instead of directly training them on pirated copies of books by American authors. "The only thing that makes sense to me is sort of this non-proliferation agreement, this treaty that could be extended internationally," said Bartz. But despite the threats, Bartz said she is optimistic about the proliferation of copyright infringement cases involving AI working their way through the U.S. court system, and said authors must keep fighting for their rights. "My hope is that this lawsuit is the first of many steps that will create a more fair environment for creatives in the era of AI," she said. Licensing - a possible way forward? One possible way for authors to get a fairer shake in the age of AI could be through the licensing of their work to AI companies. "Licensing is a way to make sure that training happens legally," said Umair Kazi, director of policy and advocacy at the nonprofit group, Authors Guild. "Not only that, licensing also enables rights holders to restrict how their works show up in AI chatbot outputs. Maybe you license just for the training, but you don't want the model churning out summaries or other kinds of derivative works - sequels and the likes." There are already some such deals between publishers and AI companies in place, such as Perplexity AI's agreement with media entities like the Los Angeles Times and Le Monde to license content for the training of its models. There are also online licensing marketplaces, such as Created by Humans. But it remains to be seen if licensing will take off. "Because the big AI companies are all in litigation over training, licensing deals are still rare," Kazi said.

Anthropic ordered to pay largest copyright class action settlement in history

Credit: Thomas Fuller/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images A federal judge in San Francisco has granted final approval to a $1.5 billion settlement between Anthropic and a class of authors who accused the AI company of illegally downloading their copyrighted books, closing out what the court called the largest copyright class action settlement in history. U.S. District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín signed the order on July 20, resolving claims brought by lead plaintiffs Andrea Bartz, Kirk Wallace Johnson, and others over Anthropic's use of pirated libraries LibGen and PiLiMi to build its book collection. Notably, the underlying dispute centered on how Anthropic acquired the books, not on whether training AI models with copyrighted material is lawful. In an earlier ruling cited throughout the order, the court had already determined that the use of training itself constituted fair use. Per the settlement, authors and publishers whose pirated books ended up on Anthropic's "Works List" can claim roughly $3,000 per book -- about four times the usual minimum for copyright infringement cases. More than 91 percent of eligible works, over 440,000 books, have already been claimed. Anthropic also has to delete the pirated files it downloaded. The settlement only releases Anthropic from liability for how it acquired the training data in the past -- not from future lawsuits over what the chatbot generates, or new claims going forward. Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín was explicit that the settlement does not release claims for future harm or claims "based on the output of AI models." The court overruled all 54 objections and comments filed by class members and third parties, including requests to expand the list of covered works, add non-monetary remedies like source attribution, or even deletion of Anthropic's models entirely. Per the court's judgment, those requests went beyond what this lawsuit could address. With the order finalized, the case is officially closed, though the court will keep an eye on how the money actually gets distributed to authors.

Anthropic to pay authors $1.5 billion over pirated books used to train Claude in first major AI copyright settlement | Fortune

A federal judge has approved a $1.5 billion copyright settlement in which artificial intelligence company Anthropic will pay thousands of authors about $3,000 per book after using pirated copies of their works to train its Claude chatbot. District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín said in a Monday ruling that the class-action settlement provides "meaningful relief" to affected authors and publishers. About 91% of the more than 482,000 books covered by the ruling have been claimed by authors or publishers who are now due payment. Plaintiff attorney Justin Nelson said in a statement that the settlement was "the largest known copyright recovery in history. We look forward to making distributions to the Class as promptly as possible." U.S. District Judge William Alsup issued the preliminary approval in San Francisco federal court last September and has since retired. Alsup had dealt the case a mixed ruling last summer, finding that training AI chatbots on copyrighted books wasn't illegal but that Anthropic wrongfully acquired millions of books through pirate websites. Anthropic's deputy general counsel, Aparna Sridhar, highlighted that ruling Friday as a landmark showing "that training AI on books is fair use under copyright law." "We are pleased that more than 91% of authors and publishers covered by the settlement have claimed their share of the payment, and we're looking forward to bringing this matter to a close," Sridhar said in a written statement. Bestselling thriller novelist Andrea Bartz first brought the suit with two other authors in 2024. It's the first major settlement in dozens of AI copyright lawsuits that are still working their way through courts.

US judge closes the book on first big AI copyright suit, ordering Anthropic to pay $1.5 billion settlement

One reason I'm so anti-generative AI is because many models rely on a data set containing written or visual work used without the original creator's permission. As a writer myself, it's a small comfort then that the copyright suit brought against Anthropic has been settled in favour of the author plaintiffs. Anthropic leveraged a library of millions of pirated books to train its Claude chatbot and, as a result, the AI company is now set to pay out a copyright settlement of $1.5 billion (via Euro News). Some of the affected authors argued this pay out was too small but, as of July 20, a US judge has now approved the deal, closing the book on one of the largest copyright class action lawsuits in US history. Anthropic agreed to pay the $1.5 billion settlement back in September 2025, but a US judge only approved the deal this week. The settlement covers an approximate total of 500,000 works, with affected authors and publishers to be paid $3,000 for each pirated work. Anthropic says that 91% of those eligible have now filed a claim. Flicking back to the beginning of this saga, writers Andrea Bartz, Charles Graeber, and Kirk Wallace Johnson originally brought their lawsuit against Anthropic in 2024. The plaintiffs alleged that the AI company had used pirated books to train Claude. In June 2025, a judge ruled that using the authors' work to train AI models fell under 'fair use' within US copyright law -- however, Anthropic was not off the hook legally as many of the books that were fed to Claude were 'found' online and not lawfully acquired. Considering the discovery of Anthropic's 'found' library originally exposed the company to statutory damages of up to $150,000 for each work, I can certainly see why some authors thought the settlement amount was too low. Add to that the private AI company enjoyed a $965 billion valuation back in May, and the $1.5 billion settlement increasingly feels like a slap on the wrist for Anthropic (mind you, the company also recently predicted it would only just be seeing its first profitable quarter this year). Still, I suppose it's not a completely bleak resolution for creatives in the age of AI. Google, OpenAI, and Meta are each facing similar court cases over their own AI training practices. If any of these or other AI companies are found to have infringed upon creatives' copyright, here's hoping for a resolution that results in a bit more than just stinging wrists.

Anthropic to pay €1.3bn in biggest copyright settlement on record

A US judge has approved Anthropic's payout to authors whose pirated books trained its Claude chatbot, closing the first major settlement in a wave of copyright lawsuits against AI companies. A US federal judge has approved a $1.5 billion (€1.3bn) settlement between Anthropic and a group of authors, closing the largest copyright class action in US history and marking the first major resolution of a wave of lawsuits against AI companies over the use of copyrighted books in model training. US District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín approved the deal on 20 July in San Francisco, rejecting objections from some authors who argued the payout was too small. The settlement, first proposed last September, resolves a class action filed by writers Andrea Bartz, Charles Graeber and Kirk Wallace Johnson in August 2024, who accused Anthropic of using pirated books to train its Claude chatbot. Under the deal, authors and publishers receive $3,000 (€2,630) for each of an estimated 500,000 works covered by the settlement. More than 91% of those eligible have already filed claims, according to Anthropic. The case followed a June 2025 ruling by then-presiding judge William Alsup, who found that training Claude on lawfully acquired books qualified as fair use, but that Anthropic's storage of millions of pirated books in a "central library" did not. That finding exposed the company to statutory damages of up to $150,000 (€131,000) per work, a potential bill running into the hundreds of billions of dollars had the case gone to trial in December. Anthropic's deputy general counsel, Aparna Sridhar, said the company welcomed the resolution. The plaintiffs' lead attorney, Justin Nelson, described it as the largest publicly known copyright recovery in history. The case is one of dozens still working through US courts against companies including OpenAI, Google and Meta over AI training practices.

Anthropic AI copyright lawsuit: Update as judge approves massive settlement and payout for authors

Anthropic will finally have to pay authors for pirating their books. On Monday, U.S. District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín approved a $1.5 billion AI copyright settlement. The payout is believed to be the largest ever for a U.S. copyright suit. Companies like Facebook parent Meta Platforms and ChatGPT maker OpenAI have also faced copyright lawsuits from authors. What does the Anthropic settlement say? Each member of the class action lawsuit could receive between $200 and $150,000 per work, according to the decision. However, it estimates that the per-work payment will be about $3,000.

Anthropic settles with authors and publishers for $1.5 billion in landmark copyright case

A federal judge today approved a $1.5 billion settlement awarded to authors and publishers whose works were used by Anthropic PBC to train the AI chatbot, Claude, in what is the largest copyright class action settlement in history. Judge William Alsup issued a preliminary approval of the settlement last year, though he has since retired, with U.S. District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín today calling the settlement fair and adequate. "The $1.5 billion settlement provides substantial benefits to the class in light of the novel claims asserted," she wrote. "Success at trial was not assured, and a loss would have left the class with no recourse." The payout means authors and publishers will receive $3,000 for each of the roughly 500,000 works that Anthropic copied from pirate libraries while developing its AI chatbot, Claude. The plaintiffs alleged that Anthropic trained its models on hundreds of thousands of copyrighted books obtained from illegal piracy websites such as Library Genesis and Pirate Library Mirror. "Anthropic has attempted to steal the fire of Prometheus," wrote the plaintiffs. "It is no exaggeration to say that Anthropic's model seeks to profit from strip-mining the human expression and ingenuity behind each one of those works." The company is now required to destroy all the pirated material. The central issue that has spawned a plethora of lawsuits -- whether it is legal to train AI models on copyrighted material -- has not yet been definitively resolved. Judge William Alsup sided with Anthropic, ruling that training its AI on copyrighted books constituted fair use. However, he also held that obtaining those books from pirate websites fell outside the protection of fair use and therefore infringed copyright. Countless lawsuits are still awaiting resolution, with companies including Google LLC, Meta Platforms Inc., Midjourney Inc., Perplexity AI Inc., and OpenAI Group PBC, all hoping for a favorable outcome. "We reached this settlement in 2025, after the court's landmark ruling that training AI on books is fair use under copyright law -- which remains the law today," Anthropic deputy general counsel Aparna Sridhar said in a statement after today's judgment. "We are pleased that more than 91% of authors and publishers covered by the settlement have claimed their share of the payment, and we're looking forward to bringing this matter to a close."

Anthropic ordered to pay $1.5 billion to authors in landmark AI copyright case

A California judge has approved Anthropic's $1.5 billion copyright settlement with authors, marking the largest copyright payout in U.S. history and a case that will likely be used as a precedent in future copyright cases involving AI. The settlement resolves a class-action lawsuit over Anthropic's use of pirated books to train its models without the consent of the authors. The case, which began in 2024, alleged Anthropic trained its AI on millions of copyrighted works sourced from sites like Books3 and LibGen without permission from the authors. Anthropic downloaded more than 7 million pirated books from shadow libraries, which were then used to train popular models such as Claude. The judge called the settlement "fair," as it covers 482,460 qualifying books downloaded by Anthropic, which the court estimated equates to $3,000 per eligible work in damages paid to the authors, without taking into account any publishing or rights agreements the authors have with their work. This settlement sets a major precedent for the AI industry, reinforcing that large-scale data scraping of copyrighted material, especially since Anthropic not only has to pay out those it has wronged, but also destroy the original files, along with any derivatives, it illegally obtained from the piracy websites. Other AI firms now face a clearer path for being held accountable if it's discovered they are using copyrighted data, particularly books from authors. "If any funds remain in the Settlement Fund after all Valid Claims are paid, the Parties anticipate a redistribution of the remaining funds to Settlement Class Members unless it is economically infeasible to do so," said ruling judge Martínez-Olguín With AI development accelerating, this ruling is undoubtedly going to influence how AI companies handle data ethics and intellectual property. What remains to be seen is whether this settlement will prompt more lawsuits, change within AI companies, or be simply a speeding ticket. "We are pleased that more than 91 percent of authors and publishers covered by the settlement have claimed their share of the payment, and we're looking forward to bringing this matter to a close," said Anthropic's deputy general counsel, Aparna Sridhar to Ars Technica

Judge approves Anthropic's $1.5B copyright settlement

Anthropic's $1.5 billion settlement for an AI copyright lawsuit has been approved by a federal judge in San Francisco. The lawsuit was filed by a group of writers in 2024, accusing Anthropic of using pirated copies of their work to train its Claude large language models. William Alsup, the original judge of the case, ruled that while Anthropic's training of Claude constituted fair use, the company infringed copyright by storing 7 million pirated books in a central library. He rejected a proposed settlement in September 2022, citing concerns that the terms were inadequate and not addressing significant questions. Following the rejection, Anthropic established an official settlement website, listing affected works for authors to verify their eligibility for claims. The approved settlement now encompasses over 480,000 works. US District Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin, succeeding Alsup, has approved the settlement terms. Authors are anticipated to receive around $3,000 for each affected work, while Anthropic is mandated to destroy the pirated copies in its possession. Some plaintiffs have opted out of the settlement, deeming the payout insufficient, and plan to pursue separate lawsuits against the company.

Judge Approves a $1.5B Anthropic Settlement Over Pirated Books Used to Train the Claude Chatbot

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- A federal judge has approved a $1.5 billion copyright settlement in which artificial intelligence company Anthropic will pay thousands of authors about $3,000 per book after using pirated copies of their works to train its Claude chatbot. District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín said in a Monday ruling that the class-action settlement provides "meaningful relief" to affected authors and publishers. About 91% of the more than 482,000 books covered by the ruling have been claimed by authors or publishers who are now due payment. Plaintiff attorney Justin Nelson said in a statement that the settlement was "the largest known copyright recovery in history. We look forward to making distributions to the Class as promptly as possible." U.S. District Judge William Alsup issued the preliminary approval in San Francisco federal court last September and has since retired. Alsup had dealt the case a mixed ruling last summer, finding that training AI chatbots on copyrighted books wasn't illegal but that Anthropic wrongfully acquired millions of books through pirate websites. Bestselling thriller novelist Andrea Bartz first brought the suit with two other authors in 2024.

US judge approves Anthropic's $1.5 billion settlement of copyright lawsuit

A federal judge in San Francisco on Monday (July 20) signed off on artificial intelligence company Anthropic's landmark $1.5 billion settlement of a class action lawsuit brought by a group of authors who accused it of misusing their books to train its AI chatbot Claude. U.S. District Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin granted final approval of the settlement, the largest known settlement of a U.S. copyright case, rejecting arguments that it was too small.The case is one of dozens brought by copyright owners including authors and news outlets against tech companies over the training of their large language models, and the first major U.S. case to settle. The writers sued Anthropic in 2024, arguing that the company, which is backed by ⁠Amazon and Alphabet, used pirated versions of their books without permission to teach Claude to respond to human prompts. Alsup ruled last June that Anthropic made fair ⁠use of the authors' work to train Claude, but found that the company violated their rights by saving more than 7 million pirated books to a "central library" that would not necessarily be used for AI training.

Anthropic to pay $1.5 billion after misusing books to train AI chatbot

A US judge has approved the settlement, which was reached last September. Following a class-action lawsuit brought about by disgruntled authors and publishers around the misuse of copyrighted books by Anthropic, the company will pay $1.5 billion in a settlement. The settlement was agreed first between both parties last September, but was approved by U.S. District Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin this week. As per Reuters, this is the largest known settlement of a U.S. copyright case, as authors and publishers took Anthropic to court after it was accused of using copyrighted material to train its AI chatbot Claude. This may seem like a victory for writers who don't want their books to be used for AI training, but last year the court did find that training AI on books was seen as fair use, as outlined by Anthropic deputy general counsel Aparna Sridhar. "We are pleased that more than 91% of authors and publishers covered by the settlement have claimed their share of the payment, and we're looking forward to bringing this matter to a close," Sridhar said. On the other side of the courtroom, the authors' lead attorney Justin Nelson said: "It is the largest known copyright recovery in history. We look forward to making distributions to the Class as promptly as possible." Training the chatbot Claude using the books was considered fair use, but Anthropic was found to have stored more than 7 million pirated books in a central library, that could not be excused as a way to train Claude.

Anthropic settlement: US judge approves Anthropic's $1.5 billion settlement of copyright lawsuit

U.S. District Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin granted final approval of the settlement, the largest known settlement of a U.S. copyright case, rejecting arguments that it was too small. A federal judge in San Francisco on Monday signed off on artificial intelligence company Anthropic's landmark $1.5 billion settlement of a class action lawsuit brought by a group of authors who accused it of misusing their books to train its AI chatbot Claude. U.S. District Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin granted final approval of the settlement, the largest known settlement of a U.S. copyright case, rejecting arguments that it was too small. The case is one of dozens brought by copyright owners including ⁠authors and ⁠news outlets against tech companies over the training of their large language models, and the first major U.S. case to settle. Now-retired Judge William Alsup initially approved the deal last September. "We reached this settlement in 2025, after the court's landmark ruling that training AI on books is fair use under copyright law - which remains the law today," Anthropic deputy general counsel Aparna Sridhar said in a statement. "We are pleased that more than 91% of authors and publishers covered by the settlement have claimed their share ⁠of the payment, and we're looking forward to bringing this matter to a close." The authors' lead attorney, Justin Nelson, welcomed what he called a "historic settlement." "It is the largest known copyright ⁠recovery in history. We look forward to making distributions to the Class as promptly as possible," Nelson said in a statement, referring to payments to authors covered by the settlement. The writers sued Anthropic in 2024, arguing that the company, which is backed by Amazon and Alphabet , used pirated versions of their books without permission to teach Claude to respond to human prompts. Alsup ruled last June that Anthropic made fair use of the authors' work to train Claude, but found that the company violated their rights by saving more than 7 million pirated books to a "central library" that would not necessarily be used for AI training. A trial was scheduled to begin last December to determine how much Anthropic owed for the alleged piracy, with potential ⁠damages running into the hundreds of billions of dollars. The settlement spurred objections from some authors who argued it was not large enough, overcompensated the plaintiffs' attorneys or wrongly excluded some copyright owners. Judge Martinez-Olguin overruled those objections in her ruling on Monday. The judge said that complaints about the settlement's size were "not grounded in a realistic assessment of the overall risks and rewards of a trial," and awarded the attorneys more than $101 million of the $187.5 million they requested in fees. Some authors and publishers opted out of the settlement and have filed separate lawsuits against Anthropic that are still ongoing.

Anthropic's Historic $1.5 Billion Copyright Settlement Gets Judge's OK | PYMNTS.com

U.S. District Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin approved the settlement, believed to be the largest such award in a copyright case in the United States, the report said. A class action lawsuit had been brought by a group of authors who accused Anthropic of improperly using their works to train its Claude artificial intelligence chatbot, according to the report. The case is one of several in which copyright owners such as authors and news organizations have sued tech companies over the use of their materials to train AI models. It is the first major U.S. case to settle, the report said. "We reached this settlement in 2025, after the court's landmark ruling that training AI on books is fair use under copyright law, which remains the law today," Anthropic Deputy General Counsel Aparna Sridhar said in a statement, per the report. "We are pleased that more than 91% of authors and publishers covered by the settlement have claimed their share of the payment, and we're looking forward to bringing this matter to a close." Justin Nelson, lead attorney for the plaintiffs, called it a "historic settlement," according to the report. "It is the largest known copyright recovery in history," Nelson said, per the report. "We look forward to making distributions to the class as promptly as possible" The judicial record on AI copyright cases like these is divided. For example, U.S. District Judge William Alsup has said copyright law "seeks to advance original works of authorship, not to protect authors against competition." But U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria arrived at a different conclusion, warning that widespread AI training could undermine the economic incentives that fuel human creative work. Daryl Lim, H. Laddie Montague Jr. Chair in Law at Penn State Dickinson Law, told PYMNTS in December that only a handful of companies can train frontier AI models at scale because these firms control compute, data, cloud infrastructure and distribution at the same time. "When you train frontier models, you need to ingest vast repositories of works that may include copyrighted works," Lim said.

US judge approves Anthropic's $1.5 bil. settlement of copyright lawsuit - The Korea Times

Pages from the Anthropic website and the company's logo are displayed on a computer screen in New York, Feb. 26. AP-Yonhap A federal judge in San Francisco on Monday signed off on artificial intelligence company Anthropic's landmark $1.5 billion settlement of a class action lawsuit brought by a group of authors who accused it of misusing their books to train its AI chatbot Claude. U.S. District Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin granted final approval of the settlement, the largest known settlement of a U.S. copyright case, rejecting arguments that it was too small. The case is one of dozens brought by copyright owners including authors and news outlets against tech companies over the training of their large language models, and the first major U.S. case to settle. Now-retired Judge William Alsup initially approved the deal last September. "We reached this settlement in 2025, after the court's landmark ruling that training AI on books is fair use under copyright law -- which remains the law today," Anthropic deputy general counsel Aparna Sridhar said in a statement. "We are pleased that more than 91 percent of authors and publishers covered by the settlement have claimed their share of the payment, and we're looking forward to bringing this matter to a close." The authors' lead attorney, Justin Nelson, welcomed what he called a "historic settlement." "It is the largest known copyright recovery in history. We look forward to making distributions to the Class as promptly as possible," Nelson said in a statement, referring to payments to authors covered by the settlement. The writers sued Anthropic in 2024, arguing that the company, which is backed by Amazon and Alphabet, used pirated versions of their books without permission to teach Claude to respond to human prompts. Alsup ruled last June that Anthropic made fair use of the authors' work to train Claude, but found that the company violated their rights by saving more than 7 million pirated books to a "central library" that would not necessarily be used for AI training. A trial was scheduled to begin last December to determine how much Anthropic owed for the alleged piracy, with potential damages running into the hundreds of billions of dollars. The settlement spurred objections from some authors who argued it was not large enough, overcompensated the plaintiffs' attorneys or wrongly excluded some copyright owners. Judge Martinez-Olguin overruled those objections in her ruling on Monday. The judge said that complaints about the settlement's size were "not grounded in a realistic assessment of the overall risks and rewards of a trial," and awarded the attorneys more than $101 million of the $187.5 million they requested in fees. Some authors and publishers opted out of the settlement and have filed separate lawsuits against Anthropic that are still ongoing.

Judge approves a US$1.5B Anthropic settlement over pirated books used to train the Claude chatbot

SAN FRANCISCO -- A federal judge has approved a US$1.5 billion copyright settlement in which artificial intelligence company Anthropic will pay thousands of authors about US$3,000 per book after using pirated copies of their works to train its Claude chatbot. District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín said in a Monday ruling that the class-action settlement provides "meaningful relief" to affected authors and publishers. About 91 per cent of the more than 482,000 books covered by the ruling have been claimed by authors or publishers who are now due payment. Plaintiff attorney Justin Nelson said in a statement that the settlement was "the largest known copyright recovery in history. We look forward to making distributions to the Class as promptly as possible." U.S. District Judge William Alsup issued the preliminary approval in San Francisco federal court last September and has since retired. Alsup had dealt the case a mixed ruling last summer, finding that training AI chatbots on copyrighted books wasn't illegal but that Anthropic wrongfully acquired millions of books through pirate websites. Bestselling thriller novelist Andrea Bartz first brought the suit with two other authors in 2024.

Judge approves Anthropic's $1.5B settlement of authors' AI copyright lawsuit -- first major case to settle

A federal judge in San Francisco on Monday signed off on artificial intelligence company Anthropic's landmark $1.5 billion settlement of a class action lawsuit brought by a group of authors who accused it of misusing their books to train its AI chatbot Claude. District Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin granted final approval of the settlement, the largest known settlement of a US copyright case, rejecting arguments that it was too small. The case is one of dozens brought by copyright owners including authors and news outlets against tech companies over the training of their large language models, and the first major US case to settle. Now-retired Judge William Alsup initially approved the deal last September. Spokespeople for Anthropic did not immediately respond to a request for comment. "We are gratified by the Court's ruling granting final approval of this historic settlement. It is the largest known copyright recovery in history," the authors' lead attorney Justin Nelson said in a statement. "We look forward to making distributions to the Class as promptly as possible," Nelson said, referring to payments to authors covered by the settlement. The writers sued Anthropic in 2024, arguing that the company, which is backed by ⁠Amazon and Alphabet, used pirated versions of their books without permission to teach Claude to respond to human prompts. Alsup ruled last June that Anthropic made fair ⁠use of the authors' work to train Claude, but found that the company violated their rights by saving more than 7 million pirated books to a "central library" that would not necessarily be used for AI training. A trial was scheduled to begin last December ⁠to determine how much Anthropic owed for the alleged piracy, with potential damages running into the hundreds of billions of dollars. Authors and other copyright holders filed claims covering over 92% of the more than 480,000 works included in the settlement, an attorney for the authors said during a court hearing. The settlement spurred objections from some authors who argued it was not large enough, overcompensated the plaintiffs' attorneys or wrongly excluded some copyright owners. Judge Martinez-Olguin overruled those objections in her ruling on Monday. The judge said that complaints about the settlement's size were "not grounded in a realistic assessment of the overall risks and rewards of a trial," and awarded the attorneys more than $101 million of the $187.5 million they requested in fees. Some authors and publishers opted out of the settlement and have filed separate lawsuits against Anthropic that are still ongoing.