Anthropic Reaches Historic $1.5 Billion Settlement in AI Copyright Lawsuit with Authors
Anthropic Reaches Historic $1.5 Billion Settlement in AI Copyright Lawsuit with Authors
AI giant Anthropic has agreed to pay a minimum of $1.5 billion to settle a landmark class-action lawsuit brought by a group of authors over alleged copyright infringement. The agreement, announced in a recent court motion, marks the first class-action settlement of its kind in the United States concerning AI and copyright, setting a significant precedent for the burgeoning generative AI industry.
Under the terms of the settlement, authors will receive an estimated $3,000 for each of the approximately 500,000 copyrighted works identified. This figure could increase as the final list of pirated materials is compiled, with Anthropic committing to an additional $3,000 per extra work. Plaintiffs are slated to deliver their complete list to the court by October.
Justin Nelson, co-lead plaintiffs’ counsel, hailed the agreement as a “critical victory,” emphasizing that it “far surpasses any other known copyright recovery” in the AI era. He stated, “This settlement sends a powerful message to AI companies and creators alike that taking copyrighted works from these pirate websites is wrong.”
While not admitting wrongdoing, Anthropic’s Deputy General Counsel Aparna Sridhar confirmed the settlement would resolve remaining “legacy claims.” The lawsuit, originally filed in 2024, alleged Anthropic trained its large language models on authors’ works without permission. A June ruling by Senior District Judge William Alsup had previously found Anthropic’s AI training shielded by “fair use” but allowed authors to pursue a class action over the use of pirated books for training data, which Anthropic maintains it did not directly use for training.
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