Federal Judge Approves $1.5 Billion Settlement for Anthropic
A federal judge in San Francisco has given the green light to a significant $1.5 billion settlement involving Anthropic, an artificial intelligence company. This class-action lawsuit was initiated by a group of authors who accused the company of improperly utilizing their books to train its AI chatbot, Claude.
District Judge Araceli Martinez-Holguin provided final approval for the settlement, which stands as the largest known payout in a U.S. copyright case. She dismissed claims that the settlement sum was inadequate.
This lawsuit is part of a larger wave of legal actions taken against tech companies by copyright holders, including authors and news organizations, regarding the training of large-scale language models. It notably marks the first major lawsuit of its kind to be resolved in the United States.
The deal was initially approved by now-retired Judge William Alsup last September.
No comments were returned by Anthropic representatives when approached for a statement.
Justin Nelson, representing the authors, expressed satisfaction with the court’s ruling, highlighting the historic nature of the settlement as the largest copyright recovery ever. He mentioned, “We look forward to making distributions to the class as soon as possible,” referring to the authors who will receive payments from the settlement.
The authors filed their lawsuit in 2024, alleging that Anthropic, supported by Amazon and Alphabet, used unauthorized copies of their works to teach Claude how to respond to user prompts.
In June, Alsup concluded that while Anthropic was justified in using the authors’ work for training purposes, the company was found to have infringed copyright by maintaining a “central library” containing over 7 million pirated books, which was not solely for AI training. A trial set for December will address how much Anthropic might owe in damages for the alleged copyright infringement, potentially amounting to hundreds of billions of dollars.
During a court hearing, attorneys mentioned that authors and other copyright holders had filed claims regarding over 92% of the more than 480,000 works included in the settlement.
However, not all authors supported the settlement. Some argued it failed to provide adequate compensation, disproportionately rewarded lawyers, or unjustly excluded certain copyright holders.
In her ruling on Monday, Judge Martinez-Holguin dismissed these concerns, stating that complaints about the settlement amount lacked a realistic understanding of the overall risks and benefits associated with going to trial. The judge approved over $101 million of the $187.5 million in fees charged by the lawyers involved.
Subsequent to the ruling, some authors and publishers opted out of the settlement and have initiated separate lawsuits against Anthropic, which remain ongoing.
