Anthropic Pays Authors $1.5 Billion in AI Copyright Settlement

Artificial intelligence company Anthropic has agreed to pay authors $1.5 billion in a class-action settlement approved by a federal judge, resolving claims that the company used pirated books to train its Claude chatbot. District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín stated on Monday that the settlement offers "meaningful relief" to authors and publishers, with approximately 91% of the over 482,000 books covered by the ruling having been claimed by eligible parties. Authors and publishers are set to receive about $3,000 per book. Plaintiff attorney Justin Nelson described the settlement as "the largest known copyright recovery in history" and expressed anticipation for prompt distributions to the class. This agreement marks the first major settlement in a wave of copyright lawsuits targeting AI companies. The case was initially brought in 2024 by bestselling thriller novelist Andrea Bartz and two other authors. U.S. District Judge William Alsup had previously issued a preliminary approval in San Francisco federal court last September. In a mixed ruling last summer, Alsup determined that while training AI chatbots on copyrighted books constituted fair use, Anthropic had wrongfully acquired millions of books from pirate websites. Anthropic's deputy general counsel, Aparna Sridhar, emphasized this aspect of the ruling, calling it a landmark decision affirming "that training AI on books is fair use under copyright law." Sridhar also noted satisfaction with the high claim rate and expressed a desire to finalize the matter.