Anthropic s landmark $1.5B copyright settlement is approved
The settlement monetizes past copyright disputes while shaping how training data could be treated in future AI development and litigation.
At a glance
- The class-action settlement is $1.5 billion with authors and publishers, averaging about $3,000 per work for roughly 500,000 works.
- Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín signed off on final approval after predecessor Judge William Alsup’s preliminary approval, with Alsup having ruled that training on copyrighted text can be fair use but piracy remains unlawful.
- Anthropic will resolve claims tied to books it downloaded from piracy sites as part of its training data, while noting ongoing copyright litigation with additional authors.
- The case would not set binding precedent as a district court decision; other lawsuits against Google, Meta, Midjourney, and OpenAI remain ongoing.
The story
A federal judge signed off on Anthropic’s $1.5 billion class-action copyright settlement, paving the way for authors and publishers to receive compensation for works allegedly used to train its AI models. Reuters reported that final approval was granted by Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.
The settlement would pay approximately $3,000 per book across an estimated 500,000 works, to be shared among rights holders. The agreement follows a ruling by the now-retired Judge William Alsup that training AI models on copyrighted text can count as fair use, while piracy conducted via sites like Library Genesis could still be illegal.
Anthropic previously disclosed that it built its training library from both legitimately purchased and scanned books and works downloaded from pirate sites. The settlement acknowledges the piracy concerns and avoids a jury trial on the unresolved issues, though it does not resolve the broader industry-wide copyright questions or set binding precedent since it is a district-court resolution.
The Verge’s coverage notes that, while many authors view the payout as meaningful, it may not satisfy all rights holders, and other lawsuits against major players in the space remain active.