Anthropic has reached a preliminary settlement in a class action brought by book authors, averting a trial that could have exposed the AI company to staggering statutory damages. According to Wired, the agreement marks a major turn in one of the most closely watched AI copyright cases.
Settlement shifts course of closely watched case
The settlement is expected to be finalized on September 3, with further details to follow, per a legal filing published Tuesday. Lawyers for the plaintiffs did not immediately respond to requests for comment, and Anthropic declined to comment, Wired reported.
The lawsuit, filed in 2024 by authors Andrea Bartz, Charles Graeber, and Kirk Wallace Johnson, alleged Anthropic illegally used their works to train its AI models. In June, US district judge William Alsup issued a summary judgment in Bartz v. Anthropic that largely sided with the company on fair use, finding its use of the books legal. However, the judge also ruled that Anthropic’s acquisition of some works via shadow libraries, including LibGen, constituted piracy, allowing a class action on that issue to proceed to trial in December.
Statutory damages for this type of piracy start at $750 per infringed work. With Anthropic’s alleged book corpus estimated at around 7 million works, potential exposure could have reached into the billions, possibly exceeding $1 trillion, Wired noted. Edward Lee, a law professor at Santa Clara University, described the settlement as a “stunning turn of events,” saying the company faced “doomsday” statutory damages risk given the rulings.
Authors’ response and wider implications
Class notification and pending reactions
Many authors who might have been part of the class had only recently begun receiving notice of eligibility. The Authors Guild alerted writers earlier this month, and plaintiffs’ lawyers were scheduled to submit a list of affected works by September 1, indicating that numerous authors were not privy to negotiations. James Grimmelmann, a professor of digital and internet law at Cornell University, said a key question is whether there will be significant revolt within the author class once the terms are unveiled, calling it an important barometer of copyright owner sentiment.
Anthropic continues to face other copyright-related legal challenges. A high-profile dispute brought by major record labels, including Universal Music Group, alleges the company trained on copyrighted lyrics; the plaintiffs recently filed to amend their case to claim Anthropic used BitTorrent to download songs illegally. While settlements do not set legal precedent, observers will closely watch the details as numerous other AI copyright cases move through the courts, Wired reported.
