Key facts
- Anthropic has agreed to a $1.5 billion settlement in a class-action copyright lawsuit.
- Authors accused Anthropic of using their books without permission to train its AI chatbot, Claude.
- The settlement is the largest known settlement of a U.S. copyright case.
- A federal judge in San Francisco granted final approval for the settlement on Monday.
- Some authors and publishers opted out of the settlement and have filed separate lawsuits.
A U.S. federal judge has approved a $1.5 billion settlement between AI company Anthropic and a group of authors who accused the company of misusing their books to train its AI chatbot, Claude. U.S. District Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin granted final approval on Monday, marking the largest known settlement in a U.S. copyright case.
The lawsuit, filed in 2024, alleged that Anthropic, backed by Amazon and Alphabet, used pirated versions of authors' books without permission to teach Claude. While a previous judge, William Alsup, had ruled that Anthropic made fair use of the works for training, he found the company violated rights by saving over 7 million pirated books to a "central library." A trial was scheduled to determine damages, with potential penalties in the hundreds of billions of dollars.
Attorneys for the authors stated that claims covering over 92% of the more than 480,000 works included in the settlement were filed. However, some authors objected to the settlement, deeming it insufficient or unfairly compensating plaintiffs' attorneys. Several authors and publishers opted out of the settlement and are pursuing separate lawsuits against Anthropic.