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Judge approves a $1.5B Anthropic settlement over books used to train Claude
AP News • • general
Key Points:
- A federal judge approved a $1.5 billion copyright settlement requiring AI company Anthropic to pay thousands of authors about $3,000 per book for using pirated copies to train its Claude chatbot.
- The settlement covers over 482,000 books, with about 91% already claimed by authors or publishers eligible for payment.
- The case, initially ruled on by retired Judge William Alsup, found that while training AI on copyrighted books is fair use, Anthropic illegally acquired millions of books via pirate websites.
- Plaintiff attorney Justin Nelson called the settlement the largest known copyright recovery in history, aiming for prompt distribution to affected authors.
- The lawsuit, initiated by bestselling author Andrea Bartz and others in 2024, marks the first major settlement amid numerous ongoing AI copyright cases.
