Anthropic to pay authors $1.5B to settle lawsuit over pirated training material
5 days ago
- #AI
- #copyright
- #settlement
- Anthropic agreed to pay $1.5 billion to settle claims of using pirated books to train its AI systems, marking the largest U.S. copyright settlement in history.
- The settlement resolves claims from the Bartz v Anthropic lawsuit, where authors accused Anthropic of downloading millions of books from pirate sites like LibGen and PiLiMi.
- The $1.5 billion settlement will be distributed among rightsholders of approximately 500,000 eligible books, with each title receiving around $3,000.
- Judge Alsup ruled that using books without permission for AI training is fair use if acquired legally, but piracy is not fair use.
- The settlement does not permit Anthropic or other AI companies to use pirated books in the future and requires Anthropic to destroy all illegally obtained copies.
- The Authors Guild, while not a party to the suit, has been proposed to serve as an author expert in allocation discussions and will help distribute settlement funds.
- Eligible books must have an ISBN or ASIN, be registered with the U.S. Copyright Office within five years of publication, and meet other class requirements.
- The settlement sends a strong message to AI companies about the high costs of using pirated content and is expected to encourage more licensing agreements.
- Authors and publishers can check if their books are included in the settlement by visiting www.anthropiccopyrightsettlement.com.
- The settlement does not affect other ongoing lawsuits against AI companies, and authors can still participate in other cases.