Anthropic Settles $1.5 Billion Copyright Lawsuit with Authors

September 05, 2025
Anthropic has agreed to a $1.5 billion settlement in a class action lawsuit with authors over the use of pirated books to train AI models, marking the largest payout in U.S. copyright history.
Anthropic Settles $1.5 Billion Copyright Lawsuit with Authors
Image: By TechCrunch

Anthropic has reached a $1.5 billion settlement in a class action lawsuit with authors over the use of pirated books to train its AI models, according to The New York Times. This settlement, involving around 500,000 authors, is the largest payout in U.S. copyright history.

The lawsuit, Bartz v. Anthropic, accused the company of illegally downloading millions of books from "shadow libraries" to train its AI, Claude. Although a federal judge ruled that training AI on legally acquired copyrighted material is considered fair use, the piracy of books led to the lawsuit.

Anthropic has agreed to pay $3,000 per work to the affected authors and to delete the pirated works. The settlement does not set a legal precedent but could influence future cases involving AI and copyright law. The company maintains that it did not use pirated works in publicly released AI technologies.

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