Judge approves $1.5 billion settlement between Anthropic and authors over AI copyright dispute
A U.S. federal judge has approved a historic $1.5 billion settlement involving Anthropic, an artificial intelligence company, and more than 500,000 authors who claimed the firm used pirated books to train its AI models without permission. The ruling by Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin in Oakland marks one of the largest copyright settlements in U.S. history. Authors will receive an estimated $3,000 per eligible work, while their legal team was awarded over $100 million in fees. The case centered on Anthropic's use of millions of books downloaded from pirated libraries to train its AI models, including Claude. While the judge ruled that using copyrighted works for training AI can be considered fair use under certain conditions, he emphasized that acquiring and storing these materials without permission was not lawful. This settlement sets a precedent in ongoing legal battles over how AI companies handle intellectual property rights.
Topics: AI Anthropic copyright law settlement