Anthropic AI Agrees to $1.5 Billion Settlement in Copyright Lawsuit
A U.S. judge approved a $1.5 billion settlement on Monday, resolving Anthropic AI's copyright infringement claims over the use of books for training. The payout is considered one of the largest in a U.S. copyright suit.
U.S. District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín on Monday approved a $1.5 billion settlement, officially concluding a major copyright lawsuit against AI company Anthropic.
The settlement addresses claims filed by a group of authors who alleged that Anthropic unlawfully used copyrighted books to train its AI model, Claude. The authors' suit stated the company committed "large-scale theft" by utilizing unauthorized copies of literary works.
The agreement allows class members to receive between $200 and $150,000 per work, with an estimated average payout of approximately $3,000 per work. The lawsuit was initially filed in 2024 by authors including Andrea Bartz, Charles Graeber, and Kirk Wallace Johnson.
This case was originally set for trial in December, where potential damages could have reached hundreds of billions of dollars. Anthropic opted to settle in September prior to the trial proceeding.
This settlement is notable within the landscape of AI-related copyright litigation, with other major technology firms like Meta and OpenAI also facing similar legal challenges.